


Cabin I and II, The

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-07-31
Updated: 1998-07-31
Packaged: 2018-11-21 00:29:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11346270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: A series that follows a year in the life of Krycek after he gets out of the missile silo.





	Cabin I and II, The

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

The Cabin I by Cathy Lee

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own any of the X-files characters, I'm only borrowing them for an amusing pastoral frolic. No one's going to make a damn dime off of this story, not me, not any Fox Television executive or 1013 Production person suing me. Its a loosing proposition all around.  
This story can be posted in its entirety anywhere as long as the headers are in place.  
"The Cabin" is the first part of a two or three part work the follows a year in the life of Alex Krycek after he gets out of the missile silo. The second part, "the Island" has already been written and will be posted in about one week. The third part is still unnamed and unwritten.  
This story is rated NC-17. It contains graphic descriptions of sex including sex between people of the same gender. If you are under 18 or are easily offended I suggest you read something else, or go watch TV damnit! Lets put it this way, in my X-files universe _everyone_ gets laid. And if they're not getting laid in my story, you can assume they're getting laid off stage. Yes, I'm a seasoned a.s.s. poster and that should be very apparent to anyone reading this story. This is my first foray onto a.x.t.c. so please don't flame me for content. Stilted dialogue, convoluted plots or lack of plot, unrealistic characterizations, that I can be flamed for, but you've been warned about the sex.

* * *

The Cabin I by Cathy Lee

dedicated to Brenda Antrim. (If you are familiar with her work you will soon know why.)

********************************

At ten that night Mulder met the mysterious contact in the parking lot of a restaurant three blocks away from his apartment.

"Here's something that may interest you, Mulder." he said handing the agent a manila envelope. "Recently the consortium has been doing a little housecleaning...Inside are authorizations for the transfer of a prisoner from the ward for the criminally insane at the Massachusetts State Mental Hospital in Worcester to St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital in Washington D.C.... The prisoner's name is Raymond Shaw. All I can tell you Mulder is that this prisoner may have some very valuable information for you, but I can't tell you why. Agents escorting the prisoner are scheduled to arrive at the hospital tomorrow at noon. Except for the fact that I've substituted yours and Scully's names as the escort agents, these are exact duplicates of real authorization orders to be presented to the head of the Massachusetts hospital. I suggest that you and your partner arrive earlier in the day and intercept this prisoner before the arrival of the actual agents scheduled to escort him. For your information Mulder these agents are under orders to execute this man as soon as they get him off the hospital grounds"

Mulder took the envelope from his mysterious contact. "What am I supposed to do with this man after I intercept him, I don't suppose I'm to continue to St. Elizabeth's with him?"

"You'll know when you see him and no, the administers at St. Elizabeth's aren't expecting him. The pretense that Raymond Shaw will be observed for part of a criminal profiling study at St. Elizabeth's, which you'll read about in the authorization report, is entirely false. No one is expecting this prisoner. Essentially he's a dead man tomorrow afternoon, so kill him if you feel that you need to but in the meantime he has information you may find very valuable." 

Mulder cringed at the caviler suggestion made by his contact that he would want to kill someone simply because they ceased to be useful to him.

"You're familiar with the FBI protocol for transferring prisoners across state lines?"

"No, not really but I can look it up in the manuals."

"No need, I've Xeroxed the pertinent sections for you to save you a little time." He handed Mulder a thick manila envelope stuffed with Xeroxes. "You've got to be able to convince the hospital staff that you're the real McCoy. Remember, agents that escort prisoners, that's all they do. Any variation in the established routine will be suspicious. Also make sure you call first thing in the morning and let the hospital staff know that you'll be arriving at least three hours earlier."

Mulder quickly glanced over the file he received from his contact reading the brief description of the mental patient and his crimes. "I don't understand how could delusional crackpot who went on a shooting rampage at a garden nursery in Long Island two years ago be of any assistance to the kind of work I'm trying to do?"

"I can't tell you any more Mulder. Just suffice to say that if this man falls into their hands tomorrow a potentially invaluable source of information will be lost to you forever." With that the mysterious man got out of Mulder's car. "Remember Mulder time is of the essence, something you seem to forget occasionally."

*****************************************************

As soon as Mulder returned to his apartment he called Scully and made arrangements for them to fly to Boston on the USAir 6:50 flight. Then he began pouring over movement authorization orders, a bogus document generated by the consortium containing little useful information but which would nevertheless serve them well the next day. He began looking over the protocol descriptions. His contact had not only Xeroxed pages and pages of regulations but had actually gone through and highlighted the most important parts for him. Mulder began to become aware of just how important his contact thought the interception of this prisoner really was.

After too short of a night he and his partner were driving in a rented Ford Taurus towards Worcester through the cold November morning. Scully was going over the protocols one last time. "Maybe we should have gotten an official FBI car at the Boston office. Guards escorting prisoners usually don't drive rental cars."

"Are you kidding it would have taken hours to sign out a car. We're running late as it is. Not only that but it would have aroused suspicion, we really have no business being in Boston this morning. We're supposed to be finishing up the reports from our last case."

"Mulder, I've been racking my brain all night and I can't even begin to imagine what this is all about. How do you know we're not being set up?"

"If it looks like a set up we'll find some pretense to back out, but I've got to tell you Scully, this source has been right on the money time and time again. He was the same guy that tipped me off about the subliminal cable messages in Braddack Heights."

They arrived at the hospital an hour latter than they had hoped and drove straight to the administration building. Inside they met the administrator in charge of the criminally insane ward, Dr. Marsha Driggers, an attractive yet stocky woman in her late forties. They had no difficulty convincing her that they were indeed legitimate.

"While the prisoner is being prepared for transport I need to brief you on a few things regarding the prisoner which may be pertinent to you. Since you're obviously not medical personnel I won't bore you with medical terms," Out of the corner of his eye Mulder saw his partner roll her eyes. "but I must say I'm glad to see this prisoner go. He's so ill however I would imagine he would only skew the results of any criminal profiling study that he's part of. ... I've never seen a more steadfastly delusional individual at this particular institution. As you probably know Raymond Shaw was serving three consecutive life sentences at Rikers Island when he was transferred here three months ago. How he ever went through his trial and sentencing without being determined to be totally insane I'll never know, a steadfast prosecutor on a mission or grieving families out for revenge, I suppose. The warden at Rikers Island, Mr. Harris, lobbied for months to transfer Mr. Shaw to a mental institute. Technically it was illegal for them to keep him in a regular prison because of the very strong schizophrenia drugs he was taking. For months nothing came of Mr. Harris's efforts when out of the blue the transfer was approved. Shaw's been with us for the last two months and seems to be getting worse"

"Just out of curiosity Dr. Driggers, just what are the nature of the delusions that Mr. Shaw is suffering from?"

"Mainly his identity, he keeps insisting he's someone else. Sometimes he's so caught up in this delusion that he seems to have no memory of his past or of his crime. He also insists he's been possessed by aliens."

Mulder added, "Who does he say he is?, Just so we'll know for the drive back, in case it comes up in conversation?"

Dr. Driggers let out a derisive laugh "There shouldn't be much conversation during the trip we've put him on an extra dose of sedatives. He shouldn't give you any trouble at all. But he says he's Alec, or Alex, anyway , I can't remember,."

 At this shocking revelation , Mulder sensed his partner tense up at his side. He exchanged a knowing and dreading glance with her.

"... To be quite honest I really doubt the wisdom of transporting this prisoner by car. He may become violent if his medication begins to wear off. Since its going to take you the rest of the day to drive to Washington you're going to have to remedicate him throughout the day. After I see that your authorization is in order you can pick him up in building G"

Scully fought hard to maintain her composure "Dr. Driggers I've also been asked to hand deliver photocopies of any files you may have regarding this prisoner."

"That will be no problem at all, I'll have the record clerk prepare them while we go pick up the prisoner. Unfortunately, Agent Scully, the records regarding this prisoner are incomplete. Mr. Shaw was convicted of six counts of murder but I was never able to get any trial summaries or sentencing orders, much less police records, all of which we're required to keep. Another thing, the psychological profile report of this prisoner is really, ...well, weird. How they ever arrived at a diagnosis of schizophrenia given the tests that were conducted, I'll never know. It never made any sense to me. But I guess that's why they want him for this new study."

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances, it was all starting to make sense. Even though Dr. Driggers was completely oblivious it would have been painfully obvious to anyone remotely suspecting mechanizations of this nature. The idea of shutting your political enemies away in mental institutions was not a new one but the degree of disingenuous sophistication employed for such an endeavor in a democracy was truly unsettling.

It took about a half hour for the agents to sign all the necessary paperwork while Dr. Driggers went over their authorization in minute detail. Afterwards she arose and said "Well let's go meet Raymond Shaw, multiple murderer, shall we?"

Marsha Driggers lead them down a corridor to building G. Mulder and Scully followed behind her whispering to one another. Mulder was becoming more and more agitated.

"If this is who I think it may be I'm going to freak."

"Just stay calm Mulder."

"What if he recognizes us or refuses to go with us."

"According to Driggers he's so drugged up right now I sincerely doubt he will, but if he does I hope he realizes we're here to save his ass. I'd say it's very unlikely he'll refuse to go with us."

Dr. Driggers stopped in front of a orange metal door with a small window at the top of it. "Well here we are and..." ,glancing through the glass window, "it looks like Shaw is all ready to go." She unlocked the door and proceeded inside followed by Scully and Mulder.

The room was empty except for a institutional metal chair. An overweight guard was standing next to the chair on which sat a young man with a practically shaved head slumped over and completely chained at the ankles, wrists and neck. It was, as they suspected, Alex Krycek who didn't even look up when his former associates, enemies, and now saviors entered the room.

"Mr. Shaw I want you to meet the agents who will be escorting you to Maryland. This is Agent Dana Scully and this is Agent Fox Mulder." Scully and Mulder apprehensively hung back behind Driggers not knowing what to expect.

Krycek looked up at the two vaguely familiar faces of the newcomers in front of him. The worried looks on their faces made him laugh, he had no idea why. Nor did he have any idea why they were here or why he was chained head to foot. The tall man called Mulder approached him with a look on his face as if he was approaching a lion in a cage.

 Mulder fought back feelings of revulsion and pity towards the figure slumped over in the chair. His genuine hatred of Krycek had been one of the more troubling of the many troubling things in his life in the last few years. He never thought he would have been capable of hating anyone like he hated Krycek. Maybe he could leave this man to die at the hands of those who were coming later that afternoon. Now he understood why his source suggested he might want to kill him. But he knew, and Scully knew, that Krycek was the key to bringing down their real enemies. Somewhere in the back of the deranged head of Raymond shaw lay everything they needed to know.

"Mr. Shaw I don't know if you can understand me or not but Agent Scully and I are going to be escorting you to Maryland. You're going to be driving in a car with us for the next eight hours or so, that's why you've been chained. When we get you the hospital in Maryland we'll be able to unchain you."

Driggers addressed the guard. "Mr. Brown will you escort Mr. Shaw to the agent's car and watch him while I finish the paperwork."

"Yes I will, who gets the keys to the restraints?"

"I'll take them, "Scully said taking the keys from Brown.

"I guess I needn't remind you these restraints are the property of the State of Massachusetts and need to be returned as quickly as possible. Since you didn't bring your own set today I'm willing to lend you these but you must send them back. I'll have you sign a lending agreement when we return to my office."

Brown led Krycek to their car while Scully and Mulder went over some last minute details with Dr. Driggers in her office.

"Here are the records you've requested Agent Scully. I'm sorry they are incomplete. Walter Reed will have to write to the Justice Department of the State of New York for the missing parts."

"Just out of curiosity Dr. Driggers who would have access to these records besides hospital staff?"

"Normally no one would have access to any records of a civilian patient at this facility. We maintain strict patient/doctor confidentiality, however patients like Mr. Shaw who are convicted felons do not have this privilege. Our institutional review board commonly reviews the records of those patients in the ward for the criminally insane. In fact recently these records have been reviewed extensively by the board because of the controversy the existence of this ward has caused in the community."

"I see, thank you very much."

Mulder noticing the time frantically whispered, "Scully, we have got to go it's eleven-forty."

Just then a small intercom on Dr. Driggers desk buzzed. She held it down and her secretaries voice chimed through, "Dr. Driggers, two agents from the FBI here to escort another prisoner."

Driggers answered back "Tell them to wait, their appointment's not until twelve, I'll be with them in a minute."

 Scully and Mulder were in a panic but trying not to show it. Mulder hurriedly arose, "We have to go right now."

"I know you do, listen I know what's going on, I suspected it from the first week that prisoner was transferred here. I'm sorry to say he's not the first to come through here under these kinds of circumstances. Them showing up confirms my suspicions." She arose and showed them to a door beside her desk leading down a long corridor. "Go to the end of this corridor and take the stairs to the exit. Mr. Brown will be waiting in front of H building with your car and Mr. Shaw, . . . or whatever his name really is. Ask Mr. Brown for directions to the back entrance to this facility. I'll call the guard post and tell them to be expecting you. In the meantime I'll keep these two stalled so you can get a head start out of here."

Mulder extended his hand. "Thank you, thank you for trusting us, you're doing the right thing."

"I know, I've dealt with those two before, they're sinister creeps. Every time we have a patient like Mr. Shaw they always take them away and the patients turn up missing, .. Go now."

Scully and Mulder ran down the hall and out the door. Krycek was waiting for them in the back seat of their car fully chained and totally out of it. The sped away from the hospital as quickly as possible.

Mulder was so unhinged by the presence of Krycek and their narrow escape he continually cursed to himself and banged on the side of the steering wheel. Scully sat in the back seat of the car next to the catatonic Krycek and tried to calm her partner down. "Just drive Mulder. Calm down and stay cool. Get on the highway so you don't have to think about where you're going."

A few minutes later they were speeding west on US 90 towards Springfield. Mulder seemed considerably calmer once they were on the road and out of town.

"When we get to Springfield we'll stop and decide what we're going to do. In the meantime I'd like to go over these medical records to see exactly what kind of shape Krycek is in." She regarded the man next to her. He was an incredibly handsome man even in dull hospital clothing, his jaw dropping open and his blank stare. The manacles and chains only added to his appeal, she though slyly to herself. She then turned her attention back to his records. He'd been taking allot of sedatives, well that would have to end immediately if he was going to be any use to them. They would have to be prepared to face the withdrawal symptoms that would be expected in the next few hours and days, emotional distress, agitation and even violence, not to mention the physical symptoms of nausea and chills. Thank god for the manacles. Krycek was also taking strong drugs for schizophrenia. On a healthy person these drugs acted as a strong depressant and often triggered psychosis. Even though it would be dangerous she would have to take Krycek off all these drugs immediately. There was no time to wean him off safely and slowly. Furthermore she suspected that Krycek had been brainwashed or hypnotized into believing he was the killer Raymond Shaw. How much of his real identity he would be able to recall even without the drugs remained to be seen.

By the time the got to Springfield, Krycek was starting to become aware of his surroundings. He recognized Scully and Mulder as people he had know before he went to prison and was vaguely aware that he was traveling away with them and that his life would never be the same. The revelation that he remembered something before prison, before the killings before he knew he was Raymond shaw, gave him such a sense of joy he began to cry.

Scully looked at him awkwardly, ...obviously the withdrawal had begun. "It's going to be like this for the next few days Mulder, until the drugs are all out of his body and then its going to be a hell of allot of work for him to get his memory back." Scully reached over with a tissue wiped the tears from Krycek's cheek. "We just have to decide where it's going to be like this."

By now Mulder had pulled into the parking lot of a suburban strip mall on the outskirts of Springfield. "How about the summer house in Connecticut."

"I don't think we can go there or a hotel. Cancerman's been there I don't think it will take to long for him to figure out to look for us there. And one's just too visible at hotels, especially with a drugged-up prison escapee in chains."

"I don't know where to go with him, I know some people who have an apartment in New York City. They live in Florida in the winter."

"Actually Mulder I have a much better idea and we're almost there. A very good friend of mine has a cabin on a lake in the Adirondaks. She said I could use it anytime. No one will be there this time of year. We don't even have to wait for a key, they keep one hidden."

"Sounds like a plan."

"I'll call her right now from that pay phone and ask her if it's all right"

"What if she says no"

"Oh, I'm sure she'll say yes, I know exactly what to say."

Scully ran across the parking lot to the pay phone at the end of the strip mall. While she was gone Mulder turned around and regarded their prisoner in the back seat. Krycek stared backed at him blankly. He was no longer crying but his eyes were red and puffy and his cheeks were wet. Mulder tried to stare him down with malice . Krycek looked confused and slightly panicked.

"Do you know who you are?"

Krycek was beginning to choke back tears again. With slurred speech he responded, "I'm not sure, I think my name is Raymond but I'm not sure." He sounded totally defeated and tired.

"Your name is Alex Krycek, do you remember that?"

Krycek began wailing and beating his head against the inside of the car. His behavior was so unexpectedly violent that Mulder felt compelled to look around the parking lot to make sure no one was watching.

Mulder found it ironic yet upsetting that a man he had known as a killer, a liar and a thief could be reduced to such a blathering helpless moron. Why had the consortium bothered to keep him alive for so long and only decide to kill him now? His contact had mentioned "housekeeping". Could Krycek have had a protector who had thrown him in the mental institute to save his life? . . . Maybe his existence in the institute had gone unnoticed to the consortium until recently or his impending execution had been the outcome of a power struggle. . . . Maybe Krycek wasn't going to be executed at all but rehabilitated, and perhaps the contact had lied to him.... Maybe it was all a setup, Krycek could be involved, maybe even Dr. Driggers.... But until further evidence presented itself Mulder knew he had to go on what was the most obvious,... that everything his contact had said was true, that they had narrowly saved Krycek from death two and a half hours earlier and that Krycek was as drugged up and deluded as Scully seemed to think he was. But he knew, he could never trust him, he would never settle for the most obvious explanation, and he would always hate Krycek no mater how helpless and pathetic he was. And he knew he would never be free from that hatred until he was able to satisfy it with some type of vengeance. Mulder turned his eyes forward to the cold overcast late November sky. Scully was bounding back from the telephone now, laughing to herself. He had to grin. She was usually so serious. It was rare to see her ever crack a smile at work much less in a situation like this. He had to know when she got back in the car.

"Scully what's so funny?"

"Oh nothing, it's just that my friend was reluctant to let me use the cabin until I told her it was for a romantic tryst."

"Oh so deprogramming a hired killer who is privy to information about a conspiracy to conduct human/alien hybrid experiments wasn't good enough. You had to tell her you were having a 'romantic tryst'."

"Yes, not only that Mulder. . ." she was laughing uncontrollably now, "she insisted on knowing who I was having this tryst with. I wouldn't tell her so she started guessing. I denied everyone, so finally she insisted she knew who it was and I had to tell her that yes, she was right,... that it was with you."

"Oh Jesus."

"Mulder she was so happy it was with you she told me where the secret stash of wine was. She insisted we stay as long as we like. Its her little love nest you know."

"Romantic tryst, huh," he indicated to the sobbing form of Krycek slumped in the back seat, "Maybe we should dump him off right here."

"I called Skinner too."

"Oh god, I hope you didn't use that same romantic tryst story."

"He already knows what we did Mulder but he has no idea who it is that we picked up. I told him I couldn't tell him what we were up to but that I would try to make it back to Washington tomorrow and that you would be gone for at least a few days. He says he'll cover for us, he trusts us Mulder."

They were headed out west on 90 again. "All right, where is this cabin?"

"It's about two hours north of Albany. Albany's straight ahead on this road but I think we should stop for supplies as soon as possible, . . . and clothes for him. Also Mulder I think we need to start being super paranoid. Do you realize how bad it is for them that we have him and how important it is for them to find him and kill him. They might even kill us if we're in the way."

"Scully this is so unlike you, usually you leave the paranoia up to me."

"Well I think there's plenty of paranoia to go around today. I wouldn't be surprised if Cancerman starts working on Skinner to put the pressure on us. And I don't think we should use our cell phones anymore, they can pick up the radio signals, not until we figure out what it is exactly that we're doing. The phone at the cabin has been cut off for the winter so we'll be totally unreachable until we actually drive out of there."

"We're going to have to figure out where to stash him until he's in shape to give us the information we want. Then we're going to have to figure out what to do with him after that. I really doubt your friend will let us stay at her place that long, nor will Skinner be so supportive."

"Well, I can always tell my friend that not only did we tryst at the cabin, we decided to stick around and raise a family."

Mulder laughed out loud.

It was eight o'clock at night before they arrived at the cabin. They had taken turns driving and watching Krycek who was getting more and more agitated as the drugs wore off. After they arrived they handcuffed Krycek to the bed in the upstairs loft and began setting up house for the next few days. Even though the cabin was small, it was rather luxurious by Adirondaks standards with running hot and cold water, electricity and a fireplace. It was right on the north shore of Otterback Lake. The full moon broke through the cloud cover in the cold late November sky casting an ghostly glow across the lake. The wind picked up the scent of wood smoke and decaying balsam nettles, perfuming the entire forest. Mulder and Scully prepared a simple dinner of baked chicken and pasta which they sat down to eat with the unexpected and shackled guest.

Krycek was starting to talk now, he insisted that he remembered them but he had no idea how. He explained how he remembered being in prison for so many months and how he had previously gone berserk at the garden nursery and shot ten people before being subdued by an employee.

"My wife Amy was one of the people I killed." He bowed his head and began sobbing. "We were arguing over Hydrangeas and I just snapped"

Mulder and Scully exchanged a look as if to say "My god whoever made up this story with which to brainwash this man had quite an imagination."

Mulder challenged him, "I have a question for you . . .Raymond. . .what is it you did for a living, before you were arrested?"

"I don't remember."

"Well first of all your name isn't Raymond it's Alex Krycek and you were an FBI agent."

Krycek looked pale and cast his eyes downward.

"You never committed those murders you remember, You've been hypnotized into believing that you did."

"No, I know I committed those murders I remember them in so much detail. I shot my wife Amy, she lay on the ground bleeding to death, then I shot anyone who tried to get near her."

"But you can't remember anything about your life before then do you? That's because you didn't have a life before then, you were someone else. Your name is Alex Krycek, you grew up in Miami Florida, you went to school at the University of Florida, you were in the Navy for four years and then you joined the FBI."

Krycek looked totally confused and pale.

Mulder's voice was beginning to get challenging and demanding, "You didn't shoot your wife. Do you want to know how I know that? Its because you were never married."

Scully glanced over to Mulder as if to say, 'Knock it off your going to hard on him' and asked "How do you know so much about Krycek's life?"

"Well I was his partner for a few months, we talked some I guess, even though I never liked him. After he disappeared I got a copy of his personnel file to see if I could figure out who he was working for. There was nothing in his file after his transfer from the Miami regional office to Washington D.C.."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing at all except that he was still on the payroll."

Mulder and Scully cleaned up their dishes and reshackled Krycek to the loft bed.

"He'll come around eventually Mulder, but he's definitely been hypnotized. I'm going to see if Dr. Gramn from Buffalo is willing to come out and help us de-hypnotize him, if such a thing is possible."

***************************************

The next morning Scully arose, showered and silently dressed trying not to wake the two men sleeping in the living room. She quietly packed up her suitcase and tiptoed into the kitchen to fix some coffee before her long drive back to Boston. There was Mulder sound asleep on the couch. The way he clutched the thin blanket around him reminded her for news footage of a refugee camp she had seen on the television the other night. Poor exhausted people collapsing en masse shoulder to shoulder, with no belonging except what they were able to carry on their backs and no vision of the future. Mulder seemed so vulnerable, so unsure of what he was looking for, what he wanted out of life. 

Krycek was thrashing around in the loft bed. This was typical of drug withdrawal he might be up for days and then sleep for days. She made a mental note to bring some medications to help him through the process. She really ought to ask Mulder if she could bring him anything. She hated to wake him up though.

"Mulder, Mulder," she gently shook his shoulder. He stirred and turned around to face her. 

"What?" He rolled over on his back to face her standing over him

"I'm leaving now, is there anything I can bring you, from the office or from your house?"

"Yeah, could you bring those reports from the office?"

"Sure, anything else?"

He paused for a minute, she thought he might be falling back to sleep. "How about some more outdoorsy clothes? If you don't mind could you go to my apartment and get boots, jeans and a jacket?"

"Sure."

"And a fishing pole?"

"Mulder you don't even have a fishing pole, besides you're not going to find any fish on the lake this time of year" she whispered to him.

"Just kidding, ...actually I was dreaming about fishing." He rolled back over to fall back asleep.

"Mulder."

"What", he seemed a little irritated. "Do you need gas money or something?"

"No I just wanted you to know that I'll be back at around one o'clock tomorrow."

"Okay see you then, one o'clock tomorrow." He rolled back over and was asleep in minutes. 

Scully began he long drive back to Boston. Before she even was away from the mountains a torrential late autumn rain storm began, making driving conditions hazardous. She drove on as quickly as she could never stopping except for a quick lunch at a fast food salad bar in Springfield. She finally reached the Boston airport at about two thirty in the afternoon which gave her plenty of time to catch the four o'clock shuttle to Washington. As was customary, she declared her concealed weapon to the airline at the ticket counter and proceeded through security to wait at the gate. While she was waiting she tried to call Dr. Gramn in Buffalo to see if he would be available to assist them with Krycek. Unfortunately she was unable to reach him. She called Skinner to reconfirm their meeting for that evening. She asked him if he would mind finding a psychologist who did regressive hypnosis and would be willing to travel to see a patient. 

"That's a tall order Scully, for this late in the day." 

She suddenly thought of a friend of the family's, someone who had helped both her and Melissa. "Oh I have an idea, I know someone you can call."

After boarding the flight Scully presented the necessary forms to the flight crew declaring that she was a law enforcement agent with the FBI and was carrying a concealed weapon. Her seat was an uncomfortable center seat towards the back of the aircraft. Well she was flying standby, she couldn't expect the best, and these flights were usually oversold. A few minutes before the plane pushed back from the gate the flight attendant came over to her and spoke to her in a low whispered tone. 

"Agent Scully, as is FAA policy I need to inform you that there are two other law enforcement agents on board who are also carrying concealed weapons."

"Oh really, where are they and who are they with?" 

"They're three rows up in 16 D and E and they're also with the FBI. They're names are agents Johnson and Dzysosky." Scully paused, she knew those names, yes she'd worked with them before somewhere. She glanced up. Two men were waving to her, yes she definitely knew them. Dzysosky had taught a course in surveillance technique during the same time she was at Quantico. They seemed to be calling to her.

"Scully come on up here, we have an extra seat." There was a handsome man calling her name, waving at her, how could she resist. 

"Excuse me," she said to her seat mates and went up to join the two other agents.

"Hi Dzysosky, gosh its been a long time, I can't remember your first name though."

"Steve, its Steve Dzysosky and this is my partner Ray Johnson."

Johnson reached out to shake her hand. "Hi, nice to meet you Scully, please have a seat,"

"Its Dana Scully, nice to meet you too," The two men moved over to make room for her.

"Gosh Steve, do you mind if I call you Steve, what's it been, four years since we worked at Quantico together." 

"Has it been that long, Dana? You look better than ever." He gave her a wide grin.

What a handsome man he was, she thought to herself, a little less than forty years old, beautiful face, full head of dark wavy hair, definite dimples when he smiled, which was often, and what appeared to be a gorgeous body under that gray wool suit. Johnson and Dzysosky were both in great moods, they were going for a meeting in Washington and were both likely to be temporarily assigned there for several months to rewrite the FBI's surveillance protocol if their propositions were accepted at the meeting they were attending in the morning, which was almost a guaranteed thing. They ordered drinks throughout the flight, Scully herself relaxed considerably after a gin and tonic. They asked Dana if she wouldn't mind showing them around the town.

"Well, I can't tonight, I have a meeting to go to myself, with my boss no less, plus I have a lot of business I have to take care of for a case my partner and I are working on this week. I have to line up a physiologist to see a witness tomorrow, the one I was going to use apparently isn't available.

"You're working on the X-files project aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"With that Mulder guy? What's he like?"

"Oh, he's all right, I get along with him pretty well. Actually, we've gotten to be really good friends."

"You're going to have to tell me all about it, I hear those cases are pretty interesting. Listen, you _must_, _must_, _must_ have diner with me the first night in town that you're available." To emphasis his point he gently squeezed her hand. She glanced down to see if there was a ring on his hand. No ring!

"Oh, I don't know Steve, I'm so busy..."

"All I'm asking is diner, I'll buy . you choose the place. You don't expect me to have to go out with Johnson every night I'm cloistered in Washington, do you? I mean I need a little variety, I have to work with the guy everyday."

"All right, listen tell me where you're staying and I'll call you next week."

"All right you promise, I'll track you down if you don't."

Scully smiled mischeiviously and flirtatiously at Steve. "If I give you _my_ phone number will you promise to use it?" Johnson leaned back and grinned at his partner.

"Hell, will I use it, you bet, I'll probably put a wiretap on it." he laughed. 

Scully laughed too, she was really happy she'd run into these men. 

**************  
   
The next afternoon, hours after Scully had driven back to Boston on her way to Washington, Mulder finished putting away the lunch dishes and settled down in an arm chair to begin reading the warden's report and prison records of Raymond Shaw. He briefly glanced at Krycek reading a book curled up and handcuffed by his left wrist to the couch arm, his bangs flopping haphazardly about his face. He had showered earlier, handcuffed to the grip on the soap dish, and Mulder had provided him with a clean pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee-shirt, nothing more. He was desperately trying to tuck his bare feet under his legs to keep warm. Mulder had decided as a small cruelty he would not offer socks, shoes, underwear or anything else unless Krycek specifically asked for it. He wanted the man to feel at his mercy.

Except for his sobbing fits, so far he was coming down from the drugs much more evenly and safely than Scully had expected with no violent physical withdrawal symptoms.

And Krycek had been sobbing often. Sobbing because of the confusion he felt over his identity, sobbing with remorse because what he believed he had done, and sobbing because all that had happened to him. He didn't know why he was being held at this cabin by these people who seemed to hate him yet were protecting him at the same time. He was starting to believe the man Mulder when he insisted that his name was Alex and that he used to work for the FBI.

He was reading a book that he had found on a bookshelf in the back bedroom, "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky. He'd read this book before but he couldn't remember when. Raskolnikov seemed like an old friend to him. He was well acquainted with this character, almost as if he had been inside the man's head. Then he remembered, he had written a paper on this book for a Russian Lit class he had taken in college. Memories of the class started flooding back to him. He remembered where'd he sat, he remembered the other books he had to read. He even remembered the paper he had written on "Crime and Punishment". He could see the cover sheet in his mind and tried hard to see the name on the cover sheet. ...He couldn't quite see it but he knew it wasn't Raymond Shaw. His captors wanted it to be Alex Krycek but it wouldn't come to him

That morning Mulder had made him write the name over and over, Alex Krycek, one hundred times on a piece of paper. It seemed familiar, but anything would seem familiar if you repeated it a hundred times. They wanted desperately for him to believe that he was Alex Krycek yet they seemed so angry and disdaining of the very idea.

Meanwhile Mulder turned his attention back to the file. In the file were several letters written to the prison board by the Rikers Island prison physician protesting the incarceration of Shaw with the regular prison population while under the influence of certain classes of medication. Also in the file were the records from the prison infirmary. Shaw had been admitted to the infirmary eleven times in nine months for a total of three and a half weeks. He had been regularly beaten and abused by the other inmates. Shaw had been repeatedly treated for broken ribs, bruises, anal bleeding, bite marks, cigarette burns on his neck and back and for gonnorhea. In a strongly stated letter dated one week before Shaw's transfer to Massachusetts, the physician wrote that he believed Shaw had been raped on several occasions. He believed that this would continue as long as Shaw was locked in with the general prison population because his mental state and the drugs that he was taking rendered him helpless to the other inmates.

Mulder shifted uncomfortably in his chair upon reading this. He glanced over at Alex on the couch who seemed engrossed yet somewhat unsettled over "Crime and Punishment". Somehow it seemed like poetic justice that the man who had caused so much trouble in his and Scully's lives had become something of a public fuckdoll in prison. Normally Alex Krycek would have been able enough to hold his own against the most hardened group of prisoners, but drugged up and not even knowing his identity he had been totally vulnerable ...and with those lips and that ass he would have been a dream come true.

Mulder reread this revealing paragraph from the physician's letter over and over. He moistened his lips with his tongue, upon shifting in his seat he realized he had become quite aroused. He was ashamed when he realized that he couldn't keep his mind from dwelling on the vision of Alex Krycek being brutally raped. He tried to force himself to confront what was turning him on more, the thought of violence and indignation being visited upon his worst enemy or the idea of sex with a very beautiful man . . . but he couldn't face the answer. He thought about going into the bedroom and masturbating but a slight feeling of disgust he felt held him back.

"Alex"

The other man looked up. He was getting used to being addressed as Alex by now.

"I was reading through your prison file about when you were at Rikers Island..."

Alex was curious, he set his book down and turned his attention to Mulder.

"I see that you were raped repeatedly by the other inmates." ...Mulder savored this declaration.

Alex glanced away ashamed. "Yeah, so what."

"Well I'm sorry to hear that, it must have been very painful and disturbing for you."

Alex could tell, and Mulder knew, this was a lie barely coating over actual delight.

"Yes it was very disturbing. I refused to hook up with anyone so I was fair game. Ever been in prison Mulder?"

"No" He couldn't believe it, Krycek was even going to tell him about it. This was too good to be true. As Alex's lips parted to speak Mulder imagined a cock shoved roughly through them. He wetted his own lips and stared transfixedly at the other man. Shocked at the insincerity of his own voice he replied, "It must have been terrible."

"Well actually..." Alex stared him down defiantly, "...in prison ...I got a taste for it." He knew the look on Mulder's face, he'd seen it on so many others before, a combination of unbridled lechery and domination.

Mulder gulped hard, Krycek was challenging him. In so many ways it was the same old Krycek, same old asshole he wanted to kick the shit out of.

"I like it, ...especially hard up the ass." Even though he was hurt and confused by the other man's demeanor, with the drugs going out of his body Krycek was starting to feel more in control than he had in months. Somehow he knew that his days of defenseless passivity were over. "Just let him try and come at me", he said to himself, and to Mulder, "But in case you're wondering, I won't look twice at a piece of shit like you."

Krycek seemed to lose it now, he turned away from Mulder infuriated and sobbing. He truly believed he was in danger of assault from the man who had handcuffed him and whom he was under the complete control. "Just stay away from me," he screamed.

Mulder swallowed hard, he felt humiliated and exposed. He wondered if it was true, what Krycek said, about liking it. The other man's exaggerated challenge had enraged him, he had rarely felt the desire to commit unrestrained violence as he did at that moment. He threw down the files and walked past the couch in order to exit the living room as quickly as possible. Krycek was scrunched up on the couch in a defensive posture and purely by instinct pushed his legs out as Mulder passed, catapulting the other man to the floor.

Mulder arose more enraged than ever. All the hatred he had for Krycek came boiling to the surface of his mind. He went over to the couch and smacked the still handcuffed man as hard as he could in the face, sending him reeling. He knew he needed to be as ugly as he could to Krycek and now he knew exactly how. He grabbed the seated man by the ankles and pulled him straight out on the couch on his stomach and climbed on top of his body pinning it down with his own. He grabbed Krycek's free right wrist and slammed it down hard on the wooden arm of the couch and grinding the tender flesh hard into the sharp edge with his own forearm. Krycek was bucking now trying to get out from under him but Mulder's anger and position put him in complete control. With the weight of his chest Mulder rammed Krycek's forehead down several times into the hard couch arm provoking screams of pain form the other man. He pulled the gray sweatpants completely off and ran his hands over Krycek's ass, ...that ass which had been so badly used so often. It was magnificently well-muscled and smooth. Mulder began fumbling with his own belt and zipper until his erection fell free and he pushed himself between Krycek's buttocks. The musky heat emanating from therein hardened Mulder's cock further and drove him into a frenzy. A voice inside his head full of revulsion pleaded with him to stop. "You're not like this, what the hell are you doing, for god's sake!" But another voice was louder, a voice telling him that the time had arrived to unleash all his pent up anger, all his hatred and all his lust. He repeatedly tried pushing into the other man beneath him but he was way too tight and dry for him to enter.

Krycek was shocked at the sudden violence he had elicited from the other man. Had he goaded him forward on purpose? He had to admit to himself that he really did like it, he wanted it with other men, but not like this, not like it had been in prison so many times, but like it had been so long ago... before any of this nightmare had begun. Mulder's ragged breathing against his neck and frustrated and painful thrusting caused him to begin sobbing and pleading, he couldn't let it continue like this. The intense pain of his right wrist being ground into the armrest was making him lose his mind. He would do anything this man wanted to get it to stop.

"Mulder, stop it, please, it doesn't have to be like this. It can be so much better. ...You have to use lubricant. Get off of me. Please please get off of me. I'll do whatever you want."

Before he realized the futility of his attempts he thrust downwards a little longer, more turned on than ever by his enemies pitiful pleading. Then without speaking he arose from the couch and walked into the bathroom, his large erection sticking straight forward from his jeans falling away from his hips.

The only thing he could find suitable was a tube of lemon scented hand lotion Scully had left. ...Then he remembered the condoms. Scully's talk about a romantic tryst had opened his mind to unlikely possibilities, so he had purchased them on the sly at a drugstore they had passed in Albany. He grabbed them from the side pocket of his suitcase and headed back. But before the thought was able to fully jell in his head "No I can't do this" he was through the door and into the living room.

When he walked through the door there stood Alex, completely naked from the waist down, under any circumstances a delicious and beautiful sight. Under these circumstances however Mulder panicked and stood stock still. In his desperation Krycek had dragged the right side of the sofa still attached to his left wrist all the way over to the kitchen counter and was just reaching for Mulder's service revolver with his right hand. Mulder stood at the doorway frozen, disbelieving of the events that had elapsed in the last few minutes leading to this moment. While he stood there, trying to remember if the gun was loaded or not, Krycek picked up the revolver and aimed it dead at Mulder's eyes. Tears were streaming down his face, he pulled the trigger . A soft click issued forth,...,then another, ...and then another.

Mulder sighed with relief and, still clutching the condoms and hand cream, ran over slammed his fist in Krycek's face, knocking the gun from Krycek's hand and pushing him back down onto the couch.

Alex was sobbing uncontrollably now, he knew he had been defeated.

Mulder suddenly became aware of how he was shocked and disgusted at his own actions. What had driven him? he asked himself but he was unable to face the answer. It hadn't all been hatred.

"Krycek, I'm sorry, calm down."

Krycek continued to sob to himself curled up in a ball on the end of the couch, still handcuffed to the arm. He sat there rubbing his sore wrist against his lips refusing to look at Mulder.

"I think there's some things you should know about the past,. . . I'm only human and I'm very angry at you. We're enemies, you did some terrible things to me and my partner Scully."

 Mulder waited to see if this revelation had any visible affect on him. It didn't.

"I'm not going to hurt you now, I promise."

Krycek looked up inquisitively at Mulder. Something he was saying was really touching a nerve, bits of memories flashed through his mind.

"You're going to have to remember things at your own rate. Someone's coming tomorrow who may be able to help you though, after that we'll come to terms with what you owe me, . . .but you can never pay me back."

Returning to his armchair Mulder picked up his gun and tossed the sweat pants back to Krycek. "Get dressed. Do you want something on your feet you must be freezing?"

Krycek wordlessly pulled the pants back on ignoring Mulder offer. Then shocking even himself he looked unabashedly at Mulder and said seductively, "I meant what I said, I'll do whatever you want."

"Then shut up."

"Here we go again, how totally fucked up." thought Mulder to himself. He arose from his chair, gathered the files from the floor and went into the bedroom to read propped up on the bed. He also grabbed his gun and a box of ammunition that was sitting on the kitchen counter only inches from where his weapon had laid. He sat on the bed loading his gun and thought to himself. His hatred was getting the best of him making him into a totally different person. He needed Scully here to keep him in line. She won't be back until the next evening however. In the meantime here he was, bored out of his mind stuck in a cabin with his worst enemy in the middle of nowhere with no phone, no car, in the middle of November with incessant rain falling outside. Not only that but those murderous creeps were probably out looking for them. No wonder the situation had erupted into sexual violence.

He laughed to himself at the absurdity of it all. This seemed to alleviate the shame he felt at his actions. No, Krycek was partially to blame for it, he'd goaded him on, but, fuck, that was no excuse. Then he raised the revolver to his head and pantomimed blowing his head off complete with whistled gunshot noises.

For the rest of the afternoon Mulder sat on the bed reviewing the files. There wasn't that much more interesting information in them that they didn't already know. Krycek had recently been tested for AIDS and was HIV negative, not that Mulder gave a shit. Krycek had lost almost twenty pounds in the last few months, and come to think of it he did look relatively scrawnier. ...The real information they needed won't be contained in these files. It was what the would be able to get out of Krycek. "I'd better be nicer to him." he thought to himself.

The truth of the matter was that Mulder had nothing to do. All the work he had been doing at the office was still at the office. He could try to pump Krycek for information, but Krycek was clearly not yet ready. His mind continued to drift back to earlier that afternoon. He found himself rereading the physician's letter again and this time a twinge of pity crossed his mind. But Mulder was still aroused. The sight of Krycek standing half-naked, wielding a pistol at him, despite the horror of the situation, had been frankly erotic. His gesture had reminded him of the spear-throwing soldier in "The Sabine Women". No, no, that was an exaggeration, Krycek had been desperate and defenseless like a trapped animal. Mulder embarrassingly tried to focus his thoughts on something more productive but he found his hands wondering down to his crotch and idly stroking his erection through his jeans. He couldn't face the truth even though it was screaming in the back of his mind.

In the other room Krycek lay on the couch hurt and cold. His face was starting to swell from where he had been smacked twice and he thought his wrist would never feel the same. He was starting to remember things now, things that had been suppressed for months. This wasn't the first time the man Mulder had roughed him up. And Mulder was telling the truth, he had fucked him over royally and he felt bad about it, but he didn't know why or under what circumstances. He knew that Mulder and Scully were his best hope for getting his life and identity straight so he had to ingratiate himself to them as best that he could. If he could just keep Mulder from blowing up at him.

Through the aches of his recent injuries Krycek realized that we felt nauseous. And he felt edgy as hell. The very act of laying still was excruciating. As he flailed about on the couch fighting his confusion and queasiness a single inane though kept reoccurring to him, -his captor really was a _very_, _very_ sexy man.

At about six that evening Mulder emerged from the bedroom to find Alex shivering and sobbing on the couch. He considered the damage he had done to him. He had a huge knot on his forehead and a blackening bruise on his cheekbone. His lip was swollen and bleeding. His right wrist was so bruised and swollen Mulder doubted he could even bend it.

Alex looked up at him standing in the doorway. "I have to go to the bathroom"

Mulder uncuffed and led him to the bathroom at gun point and Krycek knelt in front of the toilet groaning. A few moments later he began retching. Mulder considered the absurdity of guarding at gun point a man who was vomiting into a toilet but he knew he could never trust him even under these circumstances. Besides, this sight was putting a considerable damper on the obsessive thoughts that had been plaguing him all afternoon. Eventually Krycek got up and rinsed his mouth in the sink.

"Do you mind? I have to take a shit."

Mulder wouldn't leave the bathroom but averted his eyes. Krycek pulled down the sweatpants and sat down on the toilet burying his face in his hands in a gesture of pure despair.

Mulder decided to leave him for a few minutes. His prisoner was such a pitiful sight he found it difficult to look at him. He moved outside the bathroom standing just on the other side. He heard the toilet flush and eventually more retching. He glanced in again to see Krycek down on his knees again, shaking with chills,

"My god", Mulder thought "how in the hell am I supposed to handle this?"

A few minutes latter Krycek was leaning quietly on the side of the toilet totally exhausted. He looked up when Mulder reentered the room. "I feel much better now."

"Would you feel better if you took a shower and changed your clothes?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Mulder cuffed Krycek to the soap dish again in the shower but Krycek wouldn't take his sweatpants off until after Mulder had left the bathroom. "He doesn't trust me anymore" Mulder laughed to himself.

The prisoner was able to eat very little of the simple meal of brown rice, steamed vegetables and leftover chicken served to him yet after the shower he seemed much more lucid and animated. He told Mulder that even though his memory was obscure, he had decided to try to believe whatever Mulder told him because of what he perceived to be glaring inconsistencies in everything he had previously considered to be true. He continually asked questions about his former life. Unfortunately Mulder was able to answer very little. He had never really known the man on a personal level.

Alex was idly pushing food around with his fork. He stopped for a moment and then looked up. "Here's something that's been bothering me for a long time, and especially today. ...Was I gay? I mean, ...am I gay?"

Somehow Mulder knew this was coming. "I don't think so but I really don't know. ...I always thought of you as straight." Mulder recalled the constant come-ons Krycek used to make to the female employees at the FBI. He remembered catching him rake Scully over with his eyes. ...But then again, there'd always been something slightly effeminate about him.

"You were ostensibly straight as far as I know, Why, do you think you were gay?"

"I don't know. I think I remember making love to women but I don't remember who they are, accept for Amy of course."

Mulder was starting to believe there really was someone named Amy who was somehow involved with the brainwashing.

"There was something more though, other memories, ...but that's not all."

"Think about what you went through in prison, couldn't that have effected you memory?" Mulder was trying to be as calm and objective as possible but for many reasons the conversation was really starting to get on his nerves.

"I don't know, I'd like to think I'm able to separate those experiences from my true feelings of desire." Krycek shifted his unwavering gaze into Mulder's eyes.

Mulder glanced away. "Can we just end this conversation, I really don't feel comfortable talking about this to you."

"Well I have just one more question. And I feel I have a right to ask considering what happened this afternoon. ...Are you gay?"

Mulder hesitated for a moment and then answered with insincere certainty, "No, ...I'm straight" He arose to begin clearing the plates from the table. "What I did this afternoon I did out of pure rage, I wanted to hurt you. I don't think you know just how much I've hated you."

That finally shut him up. Alex stared at the floor. An incredibly melancholy look crossed over his face. For a few minutes Mulder thought he'd start crying again. Finally he answered back , "You have no idea how terrible it is to not even know your own sexuality. I thought I knew at one point that I was straight, but now I doubt everything I believed about my past."

Mulder said aloud, "What makes you think you're not straight?" and immediately cursed himself for giving Krycek the opening he was pushing for.

Krycek emitted a heavy sigh suffused with self pitying sobs. "This afternoon, I thought I wanted you. While I was laying on the couch I really thought that I wanted it to continue, ...as if the horror I felt never existed. It took a long time for me to convince myself that all I really wanted from you was comforting, human contact, someone to talk to. It's been almost a year since I've had anyone to talk to besides the psychiatrist at the hospital."

Mulder began putting more wood into the fireplace. He curtly replied, "You sexualized your need for human contact and consolation, let's just leave it at that."

 "Just like you sexualized your need for revenge and brutality, let's just leave it at that." he replied bitterly.

Neither man spoke much for the next hour until it was time to turn in for the night. Mulder handcuffed Krycek to the soap dish again while he brushed his teeth. He then changed into the sweatpants and tee-shirt he customarily wore to sleep. It was odd to see Alex moving his whole arm, keeping his injured wrist perfectly rigid while he brushed. Mulder briefly contemplated how the hell he was going to explain the injuries to Scully.

After he restrained Krycek into the loft bed Mulder stood by awaiting the inevitable. And the request came, ...as he knew it would, ... hoped it would, ... and yet dreaded.

"Sleep with me Mulder."

Mulder was taken aback by the bluntness of it. He was unable respond but stood in front of the loft averting his gaze trying to think of something to say, but waiting for Alex to say something less shocking to his sense of propriety.

"I need you to be with me tonight, I don't want to be alone"

Yes, that was a more suitable appeal. It sounded more like a plea for simple human comfort from all the horror of withdrawal from drugs and the appalling realization that life isn't what you think. This was the kind of proposal he could accept. He would never have to consciously face the fact that it was nothing more than a blatant invitation to sex.

Mulder climbed into the loft and laid down next to Krycek. He lay on his back staring straight ahead trying to avoid any physical contact with the other man yet he continually felt a slight draft of breath against his face. After a few minutes Krycek moved in and pressed his body against Mulder's side. An exhilarating jolt of dread and excitement passed through the agent's body. He knew he should move away, but the unfaceable desire which had been nagging him all day stopped him.

Emboldened by Mulder's inertia, Krycek reached his swollen hand across his body and placed it cautiously on Mulder's cheek. He slowly traced it across his cheekbone, his eyes, his nose. Krycek returned his fingers to his mouth and rubbed them, wetted, over Mulder's lush lips. When he heard a sigh of desire escape from those lips he had to smile triumphantly to himself. His injured hand then traveled down Mulder's neck and across his chest, stroking his nipples through the tee-shirt. When he moved in and placed an hungry kiss on Mulder's neck he became keenly aware of his arousal through the shallow breath and quiet moans.

"This wouldn't be so difficult after all." Krycek silently surmised. He ran his tongue over the chin line and gradually into his captor's mouth, breaking into a full, openmouthed kiss.

It was the first time Mulder had ever been kissed by a man and he was confronted by a larger, much more aggressive mouth. A firm masculine tongue pushed its way into him and caressed the inside ridge of his teeth. "Get the hell out of here," he screamed to himself, but the only action he was able to make was to push his own tongue into the other man's mouth. The sharp metallic taste of blood on the injured lip thrilled his senses and hastened Mulder's responses. Meanwhile Alex's hand continued its gentle investigations of his body.

Because of the pain in his swollen wrist the caresses he was administering weren't much more than an erotic tickle, an illicit brush against skin. He reached under Mulder's shirt and ran his fingers gently through the sparse chest hair, rubbing his thumb in a circular fashion across the nipples, hardening them and eliciting moans of pleasure. He started to gently thrust his own hard cock against Mulder's hip and to his surprise Mulder pulled him into a full impassioned embrace accompanied by another deep-mouthed kiss.

Mulder kept his eyes closed as he gave his body over to the forbidden pleasures he was feeling. The hot breath of the other man, the low cries of ecstasy that reminded him so much of himself during lovemaking, the scratch of razor stubble against cheek and lips, all further hardened Mulder and quickened his breathe with excitement and anxiety. It had been so long since he'd made love. He was so lost in his hunger he was able to shove into the back of his mind that he would have normally been horrified at the suggestion of homosexual sex, and even more horrified at the suggestion of any kind of intimacy with Alex Krycek.

The other man's unhurried hand was working on his erection now, slowly tracing the outline through his sweatpants, manipulating it gently, so easily and lightly. Mulder thought he would go crazy with anticipation. He considered how Krycek, in his eagerness to carry forward the seduction, must have been enduring a great deal of discomfort due to his bondage and injuries. He gingerly took Krycek wounded wrist in his hand and examined it by the firelight. It was badly bruised and scrapped....And to think he had done this to him intentionally. ...Then he remembered why and flashes of hate came flooding back to him. He dropped the wrist and closed his eyes trying to block it out.

Given the pained look on Mulder's face Krycek had a feeling that the other man was having some sort of crisis about what was happening. He decided to proceed more aggressively in order to pull him as quickly and deeply into the lovemaking as possible. With his injured hand he tugged at the waistband of Mulder's sweats while nibbling on his ear.

"Let's take our clothes off." he rasped in his captor's ear. In truth, due to his bondage he was entirely unable to disrobe himself much less a lover.

Mulder wasn't ready to answer him so Krycek rolled his body on top of his rubbing his cock against the other man's erection. With his tongue he tried to make up for what he was unable to do with his hands, running up and down the sensitive skin on Mulder's neck and chest and suckling his nipples.

Mulder regained his focus. It didn't matter anymore who this was, his arousal was too intense to give a damn. He ran his hands up and down the other man's back delighting in the feel of solid muscles underneath. Yet the scratch of cotton was distracting..

Pushing him to the side, he tore off Krycek's pants freeing his erection. He hadn't paid much attention to his cock up until that point but when it was revealed to him he was amazed. It was beautiful, thick and smooth and quite large, though maybe slightly smaller than his own, and hard as a rock.. He held it in his hand, the first time he had ever held another man's cock, ...so powerful and so heavy. The tip glistened with a single drop of seminal fluid which Mulder brought to his lips with a finger.

With a startling roughness he lustfully pushed the tee-shirt up and away from the other man's chest and onto the shackled wrist. He then tore off his own clothes and tossed them to the end of the loft bed, throwing his body on top of Krycek's, the feel of skin against skin, nipples grazing nipples further stimulating both men.

Mulder realized he could no longer keep his hands off Krycek so he directed his movements to establish physical dominance over the other man. Both of them knew the commitment had been made, there was to be no turning back. The seduction was nearly complete. He pushed his hands up under Alex and hungrily groped his buttocks, ...that magnificent ass which he had so roughly handled earlier in the afternoon. He pushed his mouth violently against Krycek's neck, gently biting and sucking as if to consume him.

Mulder's conscious mind was telling him to hurry up and get it over with, but fuck that, he was enjoying it too much. "It's over, I'm gone", he mused to himself "I'm having hot sex with a man who happens to be one of my worst enemies and there's not a goddamned thing I can do to stop myself, ... and there's not a goddamned thing he can do to stop me either"

A feeling of excited triumph and a painfully throbbing cock convinced Krycek that it was time to lead Mulder into the next stages of lovemaking. This was going too sweetly but the fact that he was practically incapacitated frightened him. He considered performing oral sex on the Mulder but shackled as he was it would be logistically impossible. He dared not present himself for anal intercourse, his captor had been way too rough on him earlier, he just couldn't trust him for that. No, ...he knew it would be difficult, but he wanted to fuck Mulder in the ass. He would have to seduce and prep him with his one injured hand, a seemingly impossible task but one he was more than ready to try.

Mulder was on top of him totally focused on the friction of erection against erection and the taste of another man's skin and sweat in his mouth. Krycek brought his injured hand around and slowly began to caress the cleft between Mulder's asscheeks. He placed his hand on one and then the other buttock, feeling the muscles tense and relax while Mulder moved on top of him, moaning in approval.

Encouraged Krycek continued with wetted fingers, tracing his index finger over the outline of Mulder's anus for several minutes. It was so hot and so tight, ...definitely a virgin. He then began applying a slight pressure that begged for entry, ...but just before he could break through, Mulder gently, but unmistakably, pulled the hand away answering a firm, "No."

He quickly whispered the plea into his captor's ear, "I want to fuck you Mulder, I want to make love to you, please, ...you'll love it."

For the first time Mulder was suddenly overcome with an adrenaline rush because of the forbidden nature of what he was doing. He needed release yet was scared to go any further. No way in hell would he allow Alex to fuck him, not tonight anyway. ...Years ago he'd performed sodomy on one of his more adventurous girlfriends and he was ready to try it again if only he could calm down, focus his actions, and take control over what was happening.

Unabashedly, Krycek had resumed the anal message on the agent while gently kissing, nibbling and whispering in his ear. "I'll use plenty of lubricant, you won't believe how good it's going to be." He pushed his tongue in and out of his captor's ear imitating a rough sexual rhythm. He whispered seductively, "I want to be in you," and then hissed lewdly, "I want to fuck you."

"I thought you said you liked it hard up the ass" Mulder murmured back softly. ...The negotiations had begun.

Krycek paused for a moment. ..."I do ... but not like you went at me this afternoon. You scared the shit out of mm..."

Mulder cut him off with a deep kiss, pushing him firmly down onto the mattress to remind him exactly who was the prisoner and who was the keeper. Eventually he felt the other man's body relax into a passivity that was plainly inevitable given his bondage. A deep sigh of resignation escaped Alex's lips. ...He was all his now, Mulder could do whatever he wanted with him. But he still had to use utmost care as he proceeded. He didn't want to be associated in any way with Krycek prison experiences nor did he want another scene like that afternoon.

"You just tell me how to do it, I'll go as slow as you like."

"All right", Krycek acquiesced weakly. Mulder tried to reassure his lover of his gentle intentions by slowing and softening his caresses from the animal gropes he had been lasciviously administering a few seconds earlier.

He arose from the loft bed "I'll go get the condoms and lubricant." He bent down and quickly kissed Krycek on the lips.

"Check out the night table in the bedroom, nine times out of ten there's K-Y or some kind of lubricant there."

"Is that something you know from personal experience or did you read a survey somewhere?"

"I have no idea how I know." It was true, and for that mater except for several brutal encounters behind bars he could barely remember anything specific about any of his former lovers, even their gender.

Mulder climbed down from the loft and walked nude into the back bedroom. Just as Krycek had suspected there were dozens of little packages of Surgilube, condoms, a set handcuffs and various other sex toys stuffed into a small drawer under the table. He considered for a moment the women who owned the cabin. She was an attractive woman of about forty who had gone to medical school with Scully. She had two teenage sons from a early marriage and practiced medicine in Philadelphia. Scully had mentioned that she definitely had a lot of boyfriends whom she regularly brought to this cabin. ...Mulder smiled to himself, ...the cabin had sex karma.

He returned to the loft bed with the condoms and lubricant. He was now fully acquiescing to his desire to carry through an act of sexual intercourse with this man. Alex waited for him propped up on his elbows with a quilt pulled over him, a disconcerting blank stare once again crossed his face. When Mulder brought his hands up grazing the that stare, his fingers were immediately drawn into Alex's mouth and lasciviously suckled.

"Are you ready for this?" Mulder pulled the blanket aside and renewed his caresses with his hands and his mouth on the gorgeous body underneath him.

"God, yes," Krycek turned over and with his injured hand gestured for Mulder to lay on top of him.

Mulder ripped open several packages and spread a generous amount of the Surgilube on Alex's asshole and worked one and then two fingers through the small opening gently frigging the other man.

"Oh shit, it feels so good, I can't wait till you're inside me." he groaned as he pushed himself up to meet the intruding hand. Mulder eventually increased the pace. After a few minutes he murmured into his Alex's ear, "Ready?"

"Yes ...please, fuck me now." Krycek urgently cried.

He lay still with his face in the pillow waiting, listening to the creak of the mattress informing him that Mulder was repositioning himself and applying the condom. And then he was covered by the heavy weight of his lover's body. The penis immediately began probing between his asscheeks. And if Krycek was able to sense any hesitancy at all in Mulder's actions, it was completely gone before the first push was fully within him.

The heat and the tightness, the smell of desire, the taste of sweat and the painful cries mingled with pleasure turned the switch in Mulder's brain to pure wantonness. ...And within a few moments a longing to punish crept back into Mulder's movements. After all, this was his adversary, ...and now he was completely at his mercy. He plunged down rapidly and brutally into the firm muscular orifice, his moans eventually turning to growls.

Alex's cries of pleasure were immediately taken over by the urgency of pain. God, Mulder was getting too rough, just as he'd feared he might. He tried to squirm away from the thrusts as they were delivered in an increasingly more frenetic pace, but he had nowhere to go. He unsuccessfully tried bucking out from underneath. Finally he cried, "Shit, stop it Mulder you're hurting me."

Oh god, he was doing it. He'd told that himself he'd be careful but something else had gotten a hold of his mind. He ceased movement altogether and lay still inside his lover.

"I'm sorry Alex, I'm not used to this, do you want me to stop?"

Alex paused, just long enough to give Mulder the impression he was actually considering it and for a brief moment Mulder contemplated raping him.

"No, don't stop, ...just go easy on me, you can speed up later."

He renewed his thrusting slowly. He concentrated on the feel of Alex's sphincter muscle gripping up and down his shaft as he moved in and out. Soon his fucking found its natural rhythm. He was panting and moaning with every push and Alex gasped with each penetration, the rhythm was knocking the breath out of him.

Mulder considered the body moving underneath him. He ran his hands through the institutional buzz cut. The low voice, the aggressive counter movements and the hard muscles which tensed with every thrust were driving him wild with lust. This was nothing like making love to a women, but god, it was incredible. He reached around to grab Krycek's cock. His lover obliged by lifting his hips to give him access. It was harder than ever and copiously leaking pre-ejaculate. He slicked his palm on it and began jacking off the other man. The feel of this cock in his hand, pulsating and slippery, was pure ecstasy.

Alex then pushed himself onto his knees to offer Mulder fuller access to his erection. This also allowed even deeper penetration. Soon his pace increased to that of the brutal assault Mulder had first attempted on his enemy, ...but Krycek was no longer protesting. His hole was totally opened now, and greased with sweat and lubricant.

Mulder bit down on the other man's neck as he came in an attempt to stop from screaming. He roughly gnawed at Alex's ear and his dissolute cries of passion set off his lover's own orgasm. When Mulder felt the telltale twitches against his palm he jacked Alex fast, in time with the cum he was pumping into his ass. Soon he felt a slick and familiar coolness covering his fingers.

Shit, it was too much, he was drowning, he knew at that moment that he always wanted this, ...a lover, ...like Alex.

Eventually both men collapsed together on to the bed. They continued to kiss and caress as they settled down for sleep. But for Mulder the doubts returned. He couldn't stay here with this man, he couldn't let him think this was anything but an anomaly. He hoped Krycek would have his memory back soon, but feared what he would think of him then. He might even mention to Scully that they were lovers. No Mulder needed to get out of there as fast as possible. He gathered his clothes from the foot of the bed and began to descend the ladder out of the loft. As he began his climb down Krycek's injured hand shot out and grabbed his arm.

"Where are you going, don't leave me." His voice was cracking with emotion. "I really meant it when I said I needed you tonight. I didn't mean just a fuck."

Now was the time to be cruel, Mulder decided. "Krycek, I can't sleep with you, I need to sleep by myself." He yanked his arm out of the other man's grip, "And another thing, I want you to forget this ever happened. I didn't really get off on this, I was just horny and feeling sorry for you."

"Could've fooled me." Alex turned over and pulled the quilt over himself. Jesus Christ, it had been so hot and so sweet but what a bastard Mulder was...

Mulder returned to sleep on the couch. He lay awake thinking for several hours. He could hear Krycek thrashing around on the loft bed, obviously also unable to sleep either.

He tried not to let himself feel shame over what he had done. He needed to put it into perspective; it was just a meaningless fuck. He would try to forget about it tomorrow. ...But actually, for more reasons than he cared to think about, this was one of the most meaningful fucks of his life. He'd wonder before if he could do it with a man and tonight he had his answer. Not only could he do it, he could do it with someone he bitterly hated. "Maybe I'm bisexual" he thought to himself. Mulder vaguely remembered with shame that when he's first met Alex Krycek years earlier he had considered him an attractive man, sexually attractive in fact. And he just couldn't get the thought out of his mind that the sex had been one of the hottest of his life.

Tomorrow Scully would be back with Dr. Gramn probably by one or two in the afternoon. Whether or not Krycek could be hypnotized into remembering his past remained to be seen. They needed to get him into federal custody soon so that the cigarette smoking bastard's goons wouldn't have an opportunity to kill him.

Mulder glanced at his alarm clock, it was half past twelve. He needed to get to sleep. He closed his eyes and lay as still as possible trying to clear his mind of the thoughts that continued to persistently torment him.

It was almost nine in the morning when Mulder awoke. He arose and walked over to the loft bed. Krycek was curled up in a ball sound asleep, totally dead to the world. Well, the man hadn't sleep for almost two days while the drugs were wearing off, so he would let him go for awhile.

He fixed some coffee and walked around outside the cabin. It looked like the sun was finally going to break out but god the rain had risen the level of the lake to the point where the small dock at the bottom of the hill was completely immersed. Mulder remembered that the road they had driven the other night had passed over several low streams. He worried that they had washed out the road. If he had to spend another day here alone with Krycek he knew he would go out of his mind. Other than some hunters who were occupying a small cabin on the other side of the cove, there was no sign of any one else around the lake. Tomorrow was the last Saturday of hunting season however so he expected that more people would be evident by that evening.

When he reentered the cabin several minutes later Krycek was sitting up in the loft bed. He was naked from the waist down, apparently he was never able to get the sweats back on last night.

"Good morning Foxy, did you sleep well on that Nugahyde couch?" The swelling on his face had gone down considerably.

How in the hell did he know to call him that? "Just fine thanks, do you want to come down and have some breakfast?"

"Sure if you unlock me. I hate to trouble you but I need to go to the bathroom too." Krycek's voice was thick with sarcasm. "Oh my god there's cum all over the bed. What in the hell happened?" Mulder ignored him but moved over to unlock him from the loft. "You don't suppose I had a wet dream do you?"

"Shut up Krycek or I'll leave you locked to the loft all day."

A few minutes later at the breakfast table Mulder attempted to guide their conversation to a more serious subject.

"Listen, I'm sorry about last night. I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Well I feel like I seduced you so don't feel so bad," he smiled jokingly, "You couldn't have resisted so you're really not responsible Foxy."

"Why are you calling me Foxy?"

"That's your name isn't it? It really suits you too." Krycek reached his hand out towards Mulder's face but Mulder flinched away. "I don't want my partner Agent Scully to know about what happened,...either last night or yesterday afternoon. You're our prisoner and her patient. I think she would consider my actions blatantly irresponsible and unprofessional at the very least. ...And I really was blatantly unprofessional and irresponsible. I'm sorry about that. I did what I did out of anger, boredom and frustration." "Underline frustration, ...sexual frustration." Alex snickered. He paused for a moment, "Oh I get it, you don't want your partner to know you're gay. Well I can relate to that, seems that I was in a similar situation myself once."

Jesus Christ he was starting to remember a lot. "Exactly how much do you remember Alex, about your former life?"

"A lot, its really starting to come back to me now, I remember my childhood in Miami. I remember my sister Claudia. I remember the house I lived in."

"In Miami?"

"Well that and the one I lived in Tacoma Park. I bought a house in Tacoma Park about two or three years ago I think."

"Do you remember me or Agent Scully or anything about your work with the FBI?"

"I remember you" he hesitated "We used to work together didn't we?"

"That's right."

"If you could call it working together, I was really just keeping tabs on you."

"I know." A familiar feeling of anger was starting to boil up.

Alex continued to ramble about little things he remembered. A lot about his life before he joined the FBI was coming back to him rather quickly. Mulder listened, feigning interest and commiseration, while he cleared the breakfast dishes. Then, to Mulder's surprise Alex brought their conversation back to the original subject.

"I understand why you don't want your partner to know about last night. I can understand that completely." Krycek was staring at his feet. "You have your reputation at the FBI to think about and your partner, well, she's a very beautiful woman," Krycek suddenly stared directly at Mulder, "You're interested in her aren't you? What's been holding you back putting the moves on her?"

"We work extremely well together and she's my best friend. ...But I think if she's going to find out about what happened yesterday she should hear it from me, not you."

"Okay, I can go with that, Listen, I have no problem being discreet, the only thing I ask is you don't go around saying it was a big mistake, its over, it will never happen again, you were just bored and all that shit. That's pretty damned insulting, ...especially from someone who obviously loved it."

Mulder was momentarily speechless.

"You're so fucking repressed, I mean, you haven't even kissed me this morning, I've wanted to put my hands all over you. ...You're gay or bi, admit it."

Mulder started to speak but was cut off again.

"The one thing I remember the most about you, and I remembered it just this morning, is that I wanted to get into your pants from the first day I met you."

Mulder's jaw began to drop, Then he became defensive, "Listen, if I want to be straight, gay or whatever, or to lie to myself and the rest of the world about it, its my business. I have no obligation to you or anyone else."

"Well go ahead and tell yourself last night was a big mistake but just don't tell me that." He stared at his feet for several seconds. "...I want you to take a shower with me."

Mulder rolled his eyes incredulously.

"Hey, that's all I'm asking, a small price to pay for silence." Krycek began to laugh, "You need a shower, I need a shower, think of the time and water we'll save."

"Absolutely no fucking way." He'd been harassed in college before and being badgered by another man for sex was pretty damn unpleasant. He hoped Alex knew to shut up before he went over and smacked him in the face.

To his credit Alex didn't say another word. He sat there silently finishing his juice, staring out the window at the sun breaking through the clouds. He wanted this man again and he knew Mulder wanted him too. He'd just have to take it slow. Another opportunity would present itself.

When breakfast was finished Mulder locked Krycek's wrist together and hauled him up by the forearm to the bathroom. He shoved him roughly forward into the shower stall.

"Here you go man, take your shower. "

He once again locked his good wrist to the soap dish and left him there fully clothed, to fend for himself. After a few minutes he heard the water starting.

Several seconds later, "Mulder, Mulder, there's no soap."

"Oh shit" Mulder muttered to himself. He had just settled down to a three-year-old copy of "Harper's Monthly" he'd found stacked in the loft.

"Mulder there's no soap."

"All right I'm coming." He looked around for soap in a small cupboard in the hall. No soap at all. The sink in the bathroom only had liquid hand soap, he supposed they'd have to use that if no other could be found.

He stood in front of the shower stall. "Damnit Krycek what happened to the soap that was there last night?"

Krycek pulled the shower curtain slightly to the side revealing a sliver of his beautiful body. He indicated to the shower floor, "I dropped it" he snickered, "But I really can't pick it up."

Shit, what kind of a game was this? "Okay kick it out and I'll pick it up for you." A second later the bar of soap came hurdling across the floor and landed directly at Mulder's feet. He scooped it up and stepped forward to hand it into the shower stall.

He pushed his arm through the curtain to deliver the soap but instead of taking it, Alex grabbed his forearm hard and yanked him forward. Mulder stumbled headfirst and landed on his hands and knees at the bottom of the shower floor.

Mulder was taken off guard by his fall. "Goddamnit Krycek, what are you trying to do, I said no." He pushed himself up to rise out of the shower but before he could step away Krycek grabbed him roughly by the collar and pushed him against the shower wall with his own body. By now the agents clothes were becoming soaked.

"I thought you might change your mind." He ground his crotch into the other man's groin. "And now that you're here you might as well stay" Still gripping the other man's collar Krycek then fastened his mouth on his neck and began sucking and nibbling.

Shit, it was actually sweet and sexy, this idiotic macho force Krycek was resorting to, especially considering he knew he could easily have the shit beaten out of him for this kind of a stunt. While Mulder was considering this, his body had already begun responding to the moves Alex was putting on him. Involuntarily he ground his hips back against the other man and he found his hand going up around the Alex's shoulders to steady himself, pulling Alex into a kiss.

"Since you're going to stay might as well take your clothes off, I hear its the best way to take a shower."

Wordlessly Mulder undressed and threw his wet things out of the tile stall. He ran his hands up and down Alex's sides, delighting in the feel of water running over solid muscle. This was even sexier than it had been the previous night.

"You know, we really do need that soap." Krycek indicated to the bar of soap in the corner of the shower were it had been dropped during Mulder's fall.

Mulder reached for it and began soaping up his captive taking pleasure from the friction of the bar against smooth skin and chest hair. He pushed the soap between the well-built asscheeks and sweetly recalled fucking them the previous night. Alex was beginning to become fully erect, his cock bumping against Mulder's stomach. As Alex continued to administer kisses and tongue his ear and neck, Mulder felt his own cock starting to rise, the tip was prodding the outside of his lover's thigh.

"I need to ask you something," he looked Mulder intensely in the eyes, "Please uncuff me, I can't do what I wanta do to you with this hand, I nearly killed my wrist just now, yanking you in here." Shaking his left wrist in the cuff he spoke very softly, "I need to use my other hand to make love to you."

"I'm sorry, I can't uncuff you."

"But I want to go down on you. I need to get on my knees." Krycek pleaded softly.

This was too much for Mulder, he became instantly hard after this last remark. "I can't I'm sorry we'll have to save it for another time" But shit! What other time? Mulder moved in and pushed his body against Krycek's solid form. "Just use your body I'll use my hands. He gulped the water that was running down the sides of Krycek's jaw.

"Can you then please switch hands in the cuff?" Krycek emphasized this point by flexing his cuffed hand and holding his injured hand up limply for inspection.

"Are you sure you can stand it?" He whispered these words brushing his lips over the other man's. Mulder was more than ready to proceed. He realized that to get off he didn't need anything from Krycek except for his passive body and he was getting a little irritated that Krycek was disrupting the proceedings.

Mulder stepped out of the shower and reached for the key on the side of the sink. He reshakeled Krycek's wrist carefully so not to hurt him.

Krycek immediately started running his hand up and down Mulder's body. His own body stiffened with lust as he ran his fingers over Mulder's muscular ass and stroked his cock. He grabbed the soap and started rubbing it against Mulder's solid form, under his arms, his back, his chest. He delighted in the feel of nipples rubbing against nipples.

The soap made both hard bodies slick as the rubbed against each other. Mulder meanwhile had settled into a rhythmic pumping of Krycek's now straining cock.

"Could you make me come this way?"

Mulder answered him by pumping harder and faster. With his other hand he reached down and began massaging Krycek's balls.

Meanwhile Krycek's hand had slid down onto Mulder's hips. He grabbed his cock and began a similar pumping action on the other man. Mulder grasped the back of Krycek's head and stared into his eyes. He was astonished by a flagrant look of abandoned pleasure. Krycek began an upwards jabbing motion into Mulder's palm. His mouth opened as if to cry out but no sound came forth. Alex released Mulder's cock and placed his hand on Mulder's shoulder to steady himself as he brutally thrust into the other man's fist.

Mulder pumped him harder, he reached his other hand around and slipped a finger up Alex's ass frigging his prostrate gland, at first gently, but eventually frenziedly. A few moments later Krycek cried out, he threw his head back cracking it hard against the white ceramic tile of the shower stall. His cock twitched as streams of white creamy cum flew up through the fall of water hitting both men on the chest and coating Mulder's fingers. 

Krycek was still crying out and cumming, a loud steady moan easily mistakable for one of agony. Mulder removed his hand from his lover's ass pulling Alex's head down to look into his eyes and there beheld a beautiful sight, a totally vacuous expression, nothingness, even his existence, totally given over to lust. Mulder pulled him into a deep kiss, viciously biting his still swollen lip, ramming his tongue down the other man's still moaning throat as Alex's orgasm subsided. 

Mulder needed to come now, and quickly. He spun Alex around and shoved his engorged cock between Alex's asscheeks. He thrust quickly and roughly between the soap slicked orbs of flesh without actually entering him, and it was almost enough, ...but he needed more. He deftly guided his cockhead to Alex's tight spincter but before he could force himself in, Alex's voice demanded, "No, get a condom first."

Without hesitation Mulder jumped out of the shower, vaulted into the bedroom and grabbed a small foil package out of the night table. He was back at the shower already pushing the condom over his rigid shaft within seconds. Krycek stood there, dazed, messaging his asshole in preparation of getting fucked. Mulder took him abruptly and roughly. It was slightly painful at first, for both of them, but Alex was already totally opened and lubed by the soap and his own cum and Mulder was able to enter him fully within seconds. After a few short, brutal thrusts it was all over, no real rhythm was ever established. When Mulder came he imagined that the force of his eruption was propelling him out of his lover so he held on tightly, holding himself as far inside Alex as he could possible reach, pressing their bodies up against the shower wall as the hot stream of cum surged into Alex's bowels.

The brutal friction against his prostate and the animalistic urgency of it all proved to be too much for Alex. He felt himself overcome by a secondary but weaker orgasm. His hard cock spasmed and delivered more cum against the wet tile wall. It only lasted a few seconds but the sweetness of cumming in concert with his lover made it even more exhilarating for him. 

Eventually Mulder's movements stilled but he held himself closely against Krycek's firm and wet body. "Oh god," he groaned, he rapaciously kissed the back of Alex's neck. "Is that what you wanted?"

"Yeah," Alex laughed. He began to turn himself around and off of Mulder's cock to face his lover. "I want so much more though, ...you know what I want." He devoured Mulder's mouth, his lips his tongue, the water flowing over his neck.

Mulder paused and considered to himself that this was the end, everything Krycek said he wanted to do to him, it would just never happen, oh well. ...But what was it like to get fucked? How could he let go of this beautiful body? He held on tightly to Alex for a few moments before stepping out of the shower. Hard to believe that he was physically clinging to this man who he considered to be one of his worst enemies. It was too odd, he just couldn't think about it. 

About an hour later both men were lounging on the in the living room area of the cabin. Mulder was reading a back issue of "Harper's Monthly" an article about a famous book thief who stole thousands of rare books from libraries and private collections. He was eventually caught by the Omaha FBI office. Mulder recognized the names of the some of agents who worked on the case. He glanced over at Krycek. He was reading "Crime and Punishment" again but he was starting at the beginning as if he had forgotten that he had already read two hundred pages the day before.

It would all be over soon he told himself, they would get the information they needed and Krycek would be back in jail. After that he really didn't care what the hell happened to him. Their few brief sexual encounters would be nothing more than a forgettable aberration. Krycek would go back to being screwed by bigger inmates and he would resume his routine of regular masturbation and occasional heterosexual encounters.

He found that he was honestly chilled by the prospect of Cancerman's goons assassinating Krycek in prison. All the work they were going to put into this man to get information out of him just to have him popped by another hit man. Plus he was beginning to sincerely doubt that Krycek would give up any useful information without working them for something. It was entirely possible they would have to make some kind of deal with him. Well, he could live with that possibility, he just didn't know if Scully could. But where in the hell would this man go if not to prison,...hardly his problem he told himself.

Mulder sat up, that was the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. He pulled his gun out and glanced out of the window. It was a large car, not like the one in which they had originally arrived. He sighed with relief when he saw a redhead popping out of the passenger side. It wasn't Dr. Gramn who was with Scully though, it was some other man whom he didn't recognize. Mulder holstered his gun and walked out to greet them.

"Scully, I'm so glad you're back, I was going insane cooped up with him."

"Mulder I want you to meet Dr. Pomerantz. Dr. Gramn was unable to make it however Dr. Pomerantz is also an expert in the field of regressive hypnosis and is also a personal friend of my family's. Dr. Pomerantz this is my partner whom I've told you about, Agent Mulder."

Mulder extended his hand. "Nice to meet you Dr. Pomerantz. Thank you so much for coming up here today to assist us."

"Please call me Steve." Pomerantz shook Mulder's hand warmly. "I have to say I'm really intrigued by what Dr. Scully has told me about Mr. Krycek. I've only read about brainwashing cases before, I've never actually treated one." They proceeded towards the cabin.

"Krycek is actually starting to regain a lot of his memory, Mostly from the more distant past." The three of them paused outside of the cabin door discussing the patient whom Pomerantz was about to meet.

"Steve," Mulder hesitated, he was actually quite uncomfortable addressing someone by their first name in a professional capacity, "I'm sure Agent Scully has told you about the sensitive nature of the information this man has repressed. I want you to know that you having access to this information may put you in some danger."

"I feel that Dr. Scully took more than adequate measure to hide my coming up here, and let me assure you also that the FBI is paying me very well for my services. Not only that but I wouldn't miss out on a brainwashing case for all the world. I'm really anxious to begin working with this patient."

"Mulder, Dr. Pomerantz knows everything, I briefed him thoroughly on this case. I'll explain it to you later." They stepped towards the door. "What's Krycek up to now?"

"He's shackled to the arm of the couch as usual, reading a book or at least pretending to read." Mulder opened the door and they stepped into the kitchen area of the small cabin. Krycek was sitting up, he was extremely curious about what was going on and who the newcomers were. Scully silently gasped when she saw the condition of Krycek's face. Even though the swelling had gone down considerably he still looked like hell and the bruises were blackening.

Mulder noted her reaction and quickly began making introductions. "Alex this is the doctor I told you about who was going to help you regain your memory. His name is Dr. Pomerantz. And you remember Agent Scully from the day before yesterday."

"Hello." He began to grin when he saw the reaction on Scully's face. Scully walked over to get a closer look at Krycek. She picked up his wrist and held it in her hand incredulously.

"Steve why don't you and Mr. Krycek get aquatinted for a few minutes. I'm going to need to speak to my partner in privately. I'm also going to need to interview Krycek privately for a few minutes." She gazed sternly at Mulder, "Mulder, would you mind stepping into the bedroom so I may speak to you?"

They both walked towards the bedroom and shut the door, Mulder worried about what the hell he was going to tell her. He decided to let her guess at the explanation, he would just confirm her suspicions, that way there would be less of a chance of her believing whatever Krycek had to say.

"What in the hell happened Mulder?, how are you going to explain Krycek's injuries. He wasn't beaten up like that when I left yesterday morning."

"Well."

"Well what, did you beat him?, I mean its pretty obvious that you did."

"Yes I beat him."

"Why, was he trying to escape?"

"He went for my gun. It wasn't loaded but it infuriated me ...you know how I hate him."

"So you knocked it out of his hand and knocked him on the ground and kicked him in the head."

"Basically yeah, I punched him in the face too ...before he went down."

"That's pretty obvious, ..but what about his wrist, What happened to his wrist. Did you grind your heal into his wrist when he was down on the ground."

"Yes I did."

"Was he reaching for your gun at the time?"

"I don't know, I thought he was, I was really so crazy and furious I couldn't really tell, but yeah I ground my heal into his wrist when he was down on the ground."

"Okay Mulder, I don't know how you did it but you made me make up your entire story for you. Is that really what happened?"

"Basically yeah."

"What do you mean basically?, and what time did it happen? And what prompted him to reach for your gun, that's what I want to know Mulder."

"I really can't tell you why he reached for my gun, I guess he wanted to escape from me. It happened a couple of hours after you left yesterday, about one I guess.

"Skinner's coming up here tomorrow afternoon to take Krycek into custody. He'd be here earlier but he has to be at a meeting tomorrow morning and it might arouse suspicion if he canceled it. I _have_ to take Dr. Pomerantz back to Washington first thing in the morning so I'll be leaving here at about seven. That means that you'll have to spend the whole day with him again. ...Try not to beat him anymore."

Mulder groaned to himself. Despite his musings in the shower he really didn't want to spend another day with Krycek. He just wanted the whole situation out of his hands. He was glad Skinner would be handling it. He would assure that Krycek would be placed under maximum security until they were able to get the information the wanted out of him. Mulder highly doubted that Krycek had the DAT tape anymore. Under hypnosis or during brainwashing they would have found where he had it hidden and exactly what top secrete information he was able to derive from it. 

Scully took Krycek into the bedroom and interviewed him for a few minutes.

"All right Mr. Krycek, apparently my partner beat you yesterday. I need to examine you a little more closely. would you mind taking your shirt off?"

Krycek smiled suggestively at Scully and pulled his shirt over is head. Scully began her examination.

"I usually don't get a chance to examine live bodies, I'm actually a forensic pathologist, I do investigations and autopsies for the FBI."

"I know, I mean, you just told me, but I remembered that I already knew that when you told me."

"Good your starting to get your memory back." She looked over his back fighting the temptation to run her hands in a more lascivious manner over his muscles. Amazingly, little round scars appeared all over the top of his back and neck. She began counting then, there had to be at least twenty.

"Are these burns marks Krycek?"

"Yeah they are. Did you read my medical report?"

"Not all of it, no."

"When I was in prison some of the other inmates would put their cigarettes out on my neck."

Scully was shocked, "My god, ...why?"

"I guess I wasn't doing it right."

"Doing what?"

"What do you think?"

Scully's mouth dropped open. Despite her years working with the X-files and in the FBI she was continually amazed at the breadth of human cruelty.

"Of course with that kind of conditioning I learned pretty fast."

Scully counted the marks, there were exactly twenty-one clearly defined cigarette burns, but there were others as well, less clearly defined and much smaller. Upon closer examination she noted that they were small inverted arcs and interestingly enough they seemed to be lined up along his spinal column, starting at the base of his scalp and continuing to the middle of his back. She was unable to get a clear count on these marks because a few of them appeared to have been burned over.

"What are these other marks Krycek? They're not all cigarette burns. Have you every had any kind of back surgery or any time of therapy on your spine?"

"No, I don't know what you mean?"

"Of course you wouldn't remember, I'm sorry." Suddenly an insidious idea occurred to her. "...Do you mind if I ask my partner to take a look at these."

He was tempted to say, "He's already had a good look" but instead he smiled and shrugged his shoulders in agreement.

"Mulder, please come in here for a minute." 

He came through the door reluctantly. He was afraid he was about to be confronted, that Krycek had admitted what had really occurred the day before, and that morning. He was surprised to see his partner closely and concernedly examining the patient's back. He immediately concluded that she wanted to tell him about the cigarette burns, a sordid topic which he was anxious to avoid. 

"Mulder, have you seen these marks, not the cigarette burns but the other ones."

"No." He was surprised, he hadn't noticed any other marks, but then his eyes had been closed a lot. Scully pointed out the tiny arches running up and down Krycek's spine.

"This is exactly the kind of mark I had on my neck where the chip was implanted, and look he's got at least ten of them spread all over his spine."

"Jesus, Scully your right."

"I'm going to try to excise one, I've got my kit in the car."

During her brief absence from the room Mulder and Krycek exchanged words regarding the secrecy of their sexual encounters.

"Thanks for not saying anything to my partner,"

"Discretion is to my benefit as well as yours."

"I told her I beat you while you were trying to escape."

"That's almost true."

"I also told her I stepped on your wrist while you were on the floor."

A flash of pain and anger overcame Krycek, he was beginning to think that complacency in covering up his own beating was a bit ridiculous. It was nervy of Mulder to expect it.

"You owe me Mulder, for what you did to me."

He was about to argue the issue, to remind this man how much his hatred was justified. But what was the point? He wouldn't understand. Maybe an apology _would_ be more appropriate. Scully was already back in the room, with Dr. Pomerantz. She had a portable medical kit in her hand which she unzipped to remove a small scalpel and some disinfectant.

"Lay back down on the bed Krycek." To Dr. Pomerantz she said, "See what I mean, see these tiny scars up and down the spine, I think these are were chips have been implanted. The people who brainwashed this man may have thought they could control his thoughts and memory through these chips."

"I'm amazed at what people will believe. I mean I've heard of delusional people _thinking_ they had chips implanted before but I've never actually seen it done. Are you sure these weren't caused by some type of therapy such as acupuncture?"

"Dr. Pomerantz the reason I saw you was to try to remember when I had a chip implanted. I had a chip implanted in my spine also. ...Here, put your finger on this one, there is definitely some type of foreign object in here."

"The thing that intrigues me is all these perfectly round scars all over the top of his back." Pomerantz answered.

"Those are cigarette burns, this man was in prison for awhile. I believe he was force to perform oral sex on some of the other inmates."

"Is that true Alex?" Pomerantz asked. From this brief exchange it Mulder was reminded how his partner was much more comfortable relating to corpses than to live patients. As she examined Alex it hardly ever occurred to her to even address him. Dr. Pomerantz, the psychologist, on the other hand, was much more concerned with interacting. Scully was no doubt feeling anger towards Krycek and had no desire to treat him with dignity. Mulder was suddenly glad that Pomerantz was there.

Krycek was lying shirtless on the bed with the three of them hunched over his back. Somehow he managed to shrug his shoulders in confirmation of Scully's observation.

"That's pretty horrible." Pomerantz stepped back to reflect for a moment.

"Alex I want you to remain perfectly still, I believe this implant has worked its way almost to the surface of your skin and shouldn't be too difficult to remove, Mulder can you bring that light over here?"

She made a small incision on the top of Alex's spine and began probing a pair of tweezers inside the incision. To Alex's credit he didn't even flinch, even in the absence of any type of anesthesia. A few seconds later Scully removed a minuscule blood-covered square resembling a piece of silver glitter. She briefly held it up to the light before depositing it into a test-tube. She held a cotton ball over the small incision and taped it in place with a short length of medical tape. "It's the same type of object Mulder."

Pomerantz and Mulder examined the implant in the light. The psychologist was becoming increasingly flabbergasted by the strangeness of the case. 

"So you think that the people who brainwashed this man implanted these chips in an effort to control his thoughts." 

"I believe they _think_ the chips control thought. I have no idea to what degree they actually work." She turned her attention back to her patient's back. "There seem to be four more that have worked there way up to the surface which I'm sure I can safely cut out. ...Krycek do you mind if I try to remove them?"

"No, go ahead."

Scully deftly incised Alex's back and removed three more chips which she deposited into the test-tube. The last removal had been bloodier than the previous and painful for Krycek. He asked Scully to please stop. Even though she was confident she could remove it, she left the forth chip in his back along with a handful of others.

Pomerantz mentioned that he needed to get to work with the patient since it was already three in the afternoon and he would be leaving the next day.

Mulder and Scully left Pomerantz alone with Krycek to begin his regressive hypnosis therapy. They closed the bedroom door and returned to the living room. "Mulder I brought some of the reports from our last case for you to rewrite. They really need your finishing touch, you're a much better writer than me."

Mulder was relieved, now he had real work to get back into, something to keep his mind off of the events of the previous night and that morning and the strangeness of this whole situation. He settled down to the reports with a rare enthusiasm. These were the cases he had actually procrastinated finishing, they had been so inconclusive and unsatisfactory. He put all his pent up energy into focusing on the most salient points, and into drawing conclusions from the most ambiguous evidence.

Part of him wanted to tell Scully what had happened but he was afraid her reaction would be one of disgust or disappointment. Mulder figured that in his partner's mind he was arrow straight, she would only be confused or upset if he admitted to her that he had actually fucked another man, ...and their patient no less. She would be totally shocked at his revelation, so he held his tongue. 

While they worked they heard occasional sobs and shouts coming form the other room. They would glance at one another with worry. Pomerantz had gotten Krycek to agree to allow him to share information obtained from the hypnosis with the FBI agents but Scully was curious to actually sit in on the sessions. She planned on asking permission after they took their first break.

At around five o'clock Pomerantz emerged from the bedroom. He sat down on the couch to quietly apprise Mulder and Scully about the progression of the hypnotherapy. "We need to take a break for about a half an hour before I begin the next session. Alex is going to be resting in the room by himself so I thought I'd take this opportunity to fill you in. We're making a lot of progress. So far Krycek has given me details about his year as an FBI agent in Miami."

Mulder let out a sigh of disappointment.

"I know you wanted me to get the patient to focus on more recent events but I feel that he needs to remember things in a logical order that may only make sense to him. If he needs to remember events from his days in Miami first, I have to let him. He told me about how he was recruited by the man you say eventually was responsible for his brainwashing and incarceration. Apparently he was blackmailed by that man who threatened to reveal to his superiors that he had a sexual affair with another man named Neal Boden."

Mulder noted that Scully raised he eyebrows at this revelation. "Is he gay?"

"Apparently so, according to him, that's how he was recruited by these people. ...Well actually he didn't say he was gay, he just said that they found out about a sexual affair he had with another man. He was warned by a cigarette smoking man never to see the Boden again. Two days after he agreed to work for them, his lover died in a unexplained auto accident. Krycek is certain they were responsible."

"That would have been in late 1992. The last administration was quite a bit less tolerant about those types lifestyles. But Mulder, I always thought he had more of a reputation of a womanizer." 

Mulder shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he's bi." 

"Anyway, I thought you might be interested in how they recruited him, and Boden's death is certainly verifiable. I'm making tapes of course. Maybe there's more important information you can glean from those." Pomerantz then continued, "He's willing to let you two sit in on the sessions if you like. I must insist that you remain perfectly quiet and still. I'd like to have one more hour with him alone and then this evening after dinner how about if we continue the sessions here in the living room." 

"How rapidly do you think he'll be able to regain all of his memory." Scully asked.

"Fortunately I have a feeling that the people who brainwashed him relied heavily on the effects of the drugs he was given in order to hurry up the progress. From everything I've read about the Chinese Army's attempts to brainwash US soldiers during the Korean War, real brainwashing takes weeks or even months. Given the time line you described to me they only worked on this man for less than a week, hardly enough time to distort real beliefs and memories. Consequently as those drugs wear off his memory should return extremely rapidly."

"Great," Scully practically clapped her hands together, "My partner and I will have diner ready at six and then we can begin the evening seasons at seven, how's that sound to you?"

Pomerantz smiled, "That sounds fine. You really want to get your money's worth out of me don't you."

"We federal employees have to be ever vigilant with the tax payers' dollars."

That evening after dinner they continued the regressive hypnosis sessions for several more hours. Mulder was a little nervous that Krycek would somehow reveal details of their more recent relationship but Krycek focused on the work that he performed for Cancerman mainly before his first disappearance.

Scully and Mulder had written a list of questions for Pomerantz to ask Krycek while under hypnosis. 

Did he know Cancerman's real name? No he didn't although he had referred to him by various aliases. What part had Krycek played in Melissa Scully's death? Mulder noticed his partner tensing while Krycek searched his memory. He couldn't remember though, nor could he remember William Mulder's death although he'd heard the name "William Mulder."

By the end of the evening Scully and Mulder were more disappointed than they'd expected by the little bits useless information they were able to glean from the hypnotherapy. Krycek on the other hand, was elated. The progress he had made for himself in regaining his identity and sense of self had been immeasurable. Even his old mannerism were returning by the end of the evening. He would smirk at them when they seemed disappointed by his answers to their questions or he would roll his eyes when relating something particularly revealing. They'd let him sit through the sessions unhandcuffed but as soon as the sessions were over for the evening the two FBI agents erred on the side of caution and recuffed their patient/prisoner to the loft bed. 

The sleeping arrangements were difficult to arrange. After about ten minutes of haggling Scully ended up in the king-sized bed, Mulder dragged the extra mattress from the loft bed onto the living room floor and Pomerantz slept on the couch. 

At seven in the morning Scully and Pomerantz were up preparing to leave for the airport in Utica, a two hour drive from the cabin. They were both gone within forty minutes after which Mulder and Krycek fell back to sleep. When they awoke again around nine-thirty the sun was beating brilliantly through every window in the cabin. 

Mulder arose and walked outside to assess the weather. IT was incredible, it was almost like spring. Here it was the last week of November and the temperature outside had to be at least sixty degrees. The ground was a little mushy but the air was clear and crisp, the sky was cloudless and the lake was calm and sparkling with the morning sunshine. Mulder needed to be out of the cabin to spend time outdoors. He had been cooped up with the same insane man in a tiny little house for almost three days. He considered placing some chairs down on the dock and finishing rewriting his reports outside. Scully had brought him warmer, more outdoorsy clothes to wear so he didn't need to worry about ruining his suit jackets. He walked down to the dock to assess the possibilities. 

There was definitely room for two lawn chairs, he could handcuff Krycek to the rail and start him at the beginning of "Crime and Punishment" again. They could even eat lunch here. It would be a somewhat pleasant way to spend his last day of involuntary confinement. 

When he returned to the cabin he was accosted by the jarring sound of the phone ringing. Krycek was sitting up in the loft bed shaking his head with a panicky motion. "Don't answer it Mulder, its them, they'll know we're here"

Mulder shot him a look as if to say "you're out of your mind" and walked over the phone lifting it off the receiver.

"Hello."

A vaguely familiar woman's voice answered him, "Hello, ...Mulder?"

"Yes."

"Hi, this is Kathy Goldman, I own the cabin, may I speak to Dana?"

"Oh, hi Kathy, I didn't recognize your voice. Dana went on a hike this morning and I don't expect her back until at least noon."

"How's everything going there, are you guys enjoying the cabin?"

"Oh yeah its great except for the weather the first day which was rotten. We're actually going to be leaving this afternoon."

"Actually its a lot more romantic for two people to be stuck up there with bad weather. You have plenty of dry wood to burn I hope."

"When it looked like it was going to rain I brought a ton inside."

"Listen one of the reasons I'm calling is to ask you a favor. I see its supposed to get bitterly cold there tomorrow. Would you mind bringing the canoe into the cabin when you leave. I'm afraid it might get water in it and it might freeze causing it to crack, so if you just make sure its dry and lay it upside down on the living room floor I would really appreciate it."

"Sure, no problem, where is the canoe thought?"

"Oh you haven't had a chance to use it yet? It's hanging up under the cabin on hooks along with life preservers. The paddles stuck up under the eves."

"Now that I know about it I might take it out for a little spin on the lake before we leave."

"By all means do, if the weathers good. And could you have Dana call me either before you leave or when you get back tonight."

"Sure will, thanks a lot Kathy, for letting us use your cabin."

"Hey I'd do anything for Dana, and I want to have you to up to my house in Philadelphia real soon. I usually have a big house party around Hanukah and I want you two to come."

"Thanks for the invitation Kathy, I'll tell Dana." Before Mulder hung up the phone he glanced over at Krycek who was still shaking his head.

"Krycek its okay, that was the lady who owns this place, she has no idea that you're here."

"Mulder they get other people to do their dirty work for them, people you trust, they threaten them or trick them into doing their bidding. They probably tricked this women into calling here to see if we were still here."

"I don't know, the call seemed pretty innocent to me Krycek, if it were my cabin I probably would've called too."

The two men finished their breakfast and dressed to go outside for the day. Either Krycek wasn't in the mood, or after the previous evening of regressive hypnosis he'd remembered that he actually disliked Mulder, for he never once made any comment or suggestion regarding the sexual relationship they'd had over the last few days. Mulder considered it a relief. Mentally he had already put it all behind him. This extra day alone with Krycek wouldn't even try his resolve.

The two men spent a quiet morning on the dock. Krycek began reading "Crime and Punishment" again. He raced through the first two hundred pages. Mulder figured he'd finally remembered that he had already read it over and over. He used Scully's laptop computer to rewrite the reports he had been laboring over for nearly a week. After about two hours he decided that he had a satisfactory product to present to Skinner on Monday morning. The Department of Justice would be able to use their reports to begin building a case against a Kansas City couple who had been extorting banks with computer viruses. The couple had threatened the uncooperative bank officials by breaking into their homes and performing psuedo-voodoo rituals on their terrorized families.

The two men ate lunch on the dock. Mulder couldn't decide if Krycek was tired or angry, he seemed so uncommunicative. Finally after they sat in silence for awhile he said, "Well, I guess this is it, your boss is coming to get me and throw my ass back in jail. I might as well enjoy this while I can."

"Would you be interested in going out in the canoe?"

Krycek's face lit up. "That'd be great! Where is the canoe?" 

"Under the house. Let me shut down the computer and pick up the lunch dishes and then I'll get it out." 

Within a half an hour the two men were launching the canoe from the dock. Krycek was in the front of the boat with his wrists handcuffed together, Mulder sat in the back to do all the paddling. He'd planned on uncuffing Krycek once they were closer to the center of the lake so that he could give him a hand with the paddling. Mulder figured they had at least two hours on the lake before they needed to be back to meet Skinner. The lake was beautiful, the bare birches surrounding the water appeared as silver rods and the whole forest took on a golden hue as the afternoon sun moved lower in the sky. Mulder was reluctant to unhandcuff Alex, but as long as he knew he had a gun trained on him, and they were surrounded by deep and cold water, he figured he would try anything stupid. If he mentioned that they might be able to cut a deal with him, Krycek would have even more incentive to behave himself.

As soon as they pushed away from the dock Mulder broached the subject. "Krycek we know you have a lot of information that we need in order to get that cigarette smoking bastard behind bars. We know he's operating way outside the law protecting certain illegal foreign interests that are operating in this country. Your cooperation in providing us with information that will bring him down will certainly be considered when we balance your culpability in all this. As far as I'm concerned your involvement in his activities need never even come to the attention of the Attorney General." Mulder knew he was way overstepping his bounds on this one but there was a lot more he needed from this man besides just bringing Cancerman down. "That tape you had last year, do you have any idea where it is?" 

"No I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, I know who you're talking about, the man you call Cancerman. I never knew his name though. I don't know what you mean by a tape or foreign interests, maybe I was kept in the dark a little more than you think."

Mulder stopped paddling and unlocked Krycek's handcuffs. "No you had the DAT tape last year. We were going to get it when another car rammed into us. That's the last time I saw you before four days ago."

"I really don't know what your talking about Mulder." Krycek flexed his wrists and picked up the paddle. 

This was really exasperating, "Do you remember being in Hong Kong?"

"Yeah I think I remember being there, I was hiding from him but I don't remember why."

Mulder decided that maybe he had better just give it up. Krycek needed quite a few more sessions with Dr. Pomerantz before he could remember everything, and he intended on sitting in on everyone of them. "Just keep in mind Krycek, the more you can remember and the more information you can provide us with the better you chances of going free."

Krycek glanced back at Mulder and smiled as he cut his paddle through the water. "There's something _I_ want to talk to you about Foxy."

Mulder cringed, he knew what was coming. 

"Come on Foxy, lets go over to the side of the lake there and I'll suck you off better than you've ever had it before, I owe you big time."

There was Krycek, paddling in front of the canoe. His words and his appearance certainly seemed anomalous. Here in the woods with his practically shaved head, his bruised and cut face and camouflaged hunting clothing which they had dragged out of the back closet of the cabin, he looked like a reject from the Michigan Militia. All he needed was a swastika tattooed on the side of his neck. Yet his was offering to suck off a federal agent. Mulder had to laugh. 

"What's so funny?"

"Its just the way you look, with that outfit and that haircut you look more like an antigovernment survivalist yet you're offering to give a blow job to an FBI agent."

"Hey, I'm trying to wear down your moral fiber. That's how I plan on taking over the world." he laughed.

"No way Krycek."

"But you don't know how good I am, I'll take your cock down my throat and you'll never want me to pull away. I can deep throat any size piece of meat, even your monster, and you won't have to move a muscle."

Krycek's dirty talk was starting to work on him. A blowjob was no big deal he told himself. He didn't like the idea of doing it in the woods though, but maybe they could go back to the cabin just a little earlier. Skinner was punctual to a fault, if he said he was going to be there at three he'd be there on the minute. "All right man, we'll go back a little earlier."

Krycek turned back again a shot him a lascivious grin as they turned the canoe back toward the cabin. They paddled for about a half an hour in a homewards direction. Almost time to lock up Krycek's wrists Mulder thought. They still needed to cross a wide cove but the dock was almost in view, and it wouldn't be long before they'd be back. Mulder put down his paddle and leaned over to his prisoner.

"Put your wrists out man." The canoe continued drifting forward but swung around sideways. Mulder pulled out the handcuffs and began searching for the key. "Damnit, where did I put that key." He searched through his pockets and pulled out his wallet, the keys to the cabin, a wad of receipts and various other items as he searched for the key. 

"Mulder remember how you asked me about the man I used to work for and what else I remembered?"

"Yeah," Mulder didn't even look up as he searched inside the bottom of the canoe for the handcuff key.

"Well I remember that man over there, we used to work together."

Mulder jerked his body around and looked at the dock which was coming closer and closer into view. There on the end of the dock was a man in a dark suit with a high powered rifle aimed directly at them. "Oh shit" he screamed and shot a panicked look at Krycek. Krycek was already in the process of capsizing the canoe. Within a second Mulder felt himself immersed in the ice cold water of Otterback Lake as rifle shot blasted into the side of the capsized vessel. Both men immediately swam up underneath, barely keeping there heads out of the water to breathe. 

"Mulder, they're trying to kill me, I'm going to try to swim for it, I've got your wallet." He briefly held up the brown leather wallet, "I'll take the money."

"There's no money." Mulder shouted, another rifle shot blasted into the side of the canoe, the force slamming the canoe against their heads. He heard shouting on the dock. Voices seemed to be coming through the woods as well.

"ATM card?" 

"PIN's my birthday," he shouted, and then Krycek was under the water and gone.

 He needed to get out of that water and away from the canoe as fast as possible. He ripped off his life preserver and dove down. He was almost sure he was going to drown. He could already feel the coldness of the water immobilizing his limbs. He started to come up for air but realized how close he was to the canoe and dove again. He figured that if he went for the shoreline as fast as possible it would probably distract them so that Krycek would have more of a chance to get away. His head came crashing through the surface of the water and he gasped for air. He was really only about thirty yards from the nearest dry land, but he wasn't sure if he could make it. His limbs just weren't cooperating. "I see him," he heard someone shooting. He didn't hear anymore gunshots so he started doing a slow paddling stroke to the bank. Not only were his limbs becoming less and less mobile but they wee beset with stinging pains. The shore was now so close, he glanced over to the closest land and there was a man standing on the edge aiming a rifle directly at his head.

"Hold your fire, its Mulder" another voice shouted. He finally reached the shore and two pairs of arms roughly pulled out of the water and on to the land. He immediately rolled himself into a ball and began shivering uncontrollably. 

Two men were standing over him, pulling him up. They looked like typical G-men but if these two were working for whom he thought, there was nothing typical about them. They dragged him up to his feet. The one whom had originally spotted on the shore got in his face and demanded, "Where's Krycek?"

"At the bottom of the lake, you hit him." he answered. Mulder found himself unconsciously leaning into the man out of a desperate need for warm, but was abruptly pushed away. 

"Lets take him back to the cabin, it looks like might have hypothermia."

They dragged him, soaking wet and at arms length, along the quarter-mile trail that wove along the cove, without ever removing the point of the gun from his head. He knew who would be waiting for him inside the cabin and he wasn't afraid to face him. He realized that the attention they were giving him would give Krycek a better chance to escape, if Krycek could survive in the lake long enough to get to shore that is. 

As they passed the drive he observed two ostentatious black sedans parked outside the cabin. The two men pushed him through the door and roughly threw him on to the floor at the feet of another, older, man. He glanced up to see a menacing tendril of cigarette smoke wafting to the ceiling.

"Agent Mulder, I suggest you change out of those wet things... Don't you think its a little late in the year to go swimming in the lake?" Mulder lay on the floor shivering uncontrollably. With all of his strength he pulled himself, shot an angry look at his enemy, and walked into the bedroom to change his clothes.

"Where's is he?" the cigarette-smoking man demanded?

"We hit him. Mulder saw him go down." one of the goons answered.

"_Mulder_ saw him go down? And you believed him?" His voice barely held back his anger and irritation, "I want to see his dead body, do you understand that, I don't want him captured alive, I want his dead body." Three men in suits and trench coats immediately grabbed rifles and headed out of the cabin.

Mulder slowly undressed, pealing off the sodden woolens, blue jeans and tennis shoes, and throwing them into a wet pile on the floor. His skin felt numb, anesthetized. His movements were jerky and slow but he was becoming confident that he hadn't suffered too badly from his fall in the lake. If he had really suffered serious hypothermia he wouldn't be able to control his shivering, but after drying himself off he was already starting to feel a little warmer. He put on as many of the warmest and driest clothes he could get his hands on. He was just finishing changing when another of Cancerman's henchmen burst into the bedroom. Without even speaking, he unceremoniously pushed a gun to his scalp and hauled him into the living room by his collar.

Mulder, looked over to see Cancerman at the stove pouring some hot liquid into a mug. He turned around and handed him the mug. "I suggest you drink this Agent Mulder, you need to get your core temperature back up to normal as quickly as possible."

Refusing to thank him Mulder drank the hot chocolate that his enemy had made for him. Cancerman sat down at the kitchen table and lit up another Morley He didn't speak for several minutes while he sucked on his cigarette. Mulder was silent also as he finished his chocolate, watching Cancerman watching him. After several minutes they heard several rifle reports and shouting in the woods.

"This is the last day of deer hunting season isn't it Agent Mulder?"

Mulder stared back at him blankly.

"Its such a tragedy, every year so many hunters and bystanders are killed in hunting related accidents." He paused briefly. "People,...such as yourself for instance..., go into the woods not wearing blaze orange and are tragically mistaken for game by over-enthusiastic, bored or intoxicated hunters."

"Actually hunting season ended yesterday."

"Oh did it? But I thought I heard they'd extended it a day this year, just to give those people who hadn't caught anything, a shot at some game."

Mulder glance briefly at his watch. Twenty minutes to go, he thought.

"I have a few questions to ask you Agent Mulder, and if you answer them quickly and efficiently I'm sure we can guarantee your safety leaving the woods today." He lit up another cigarette.

"Who told you about the whereabouts of Mr. Krycek?"

Mulder didn't answer him.

"It was very unwise for you to attempt to rehabilitate someone as sick as Mr. Krycek. His mental breakdown last year was devastating and tragic. It seems that when he was accidentally locked up in a missile silo for a few days he completely lost his mind. I never realized how tenuous, how fragile his grasp of reality must have been. But what else can you expect from a man who rivaled Timothy Leary in the number of hallucinogenics he took."

"He has you to thank for that."

"Who told you where he was Mr. Mulder?" Mulder stared back at him silently.

"Who told you?"

"We searched the data bases of every mental institute in the country looking for someone matching his profile."

"That's a lie Mulder, someone tipped you off and I want to know who."

"I told you no one, we searched databases for months to find him."

"Are you trying to make me for the fool? Perhaps another little dip in the lake will help clear your memory." In the distance, more rifle shots echoed through the woods. 

The cigarette-smoking man continued, "Well at any rate I'm sure my men have gotten him by now." For a second Mulder thought he heard cars pulling up outside. Then he was sure of it. His enemy stopped talking and listened intently for a moment, then a vexed looked crossed his face. 

A second later three FBI agents burst through the door with their weapons drawn. "Federal agents, drop your weapons and put your hands up." Mulder saw Cancerman's henchman place his rifle on the kitchen counter and put his palms in the air. Cancerman himself slightly flexed his palms upwards, never relinquishing his lit cigarette. A second later his boss Assistant Director Skinner walked through the door of the cabin along with his partner Scully in her long woolen trench coat. She immediately ran over to Mulder and whispered "Are you okay, you look like hell."

"I'm fine, I feel in the lake though." 

Skinner walked up to Cancerman "What in the hell are you doing here?" he angrily hissed.

Cancerman continued to drag on his cigarette, making no effort to avoid blowing the smoke in Skinners face. "I'm here protecting my interests, same as you, Mr. Skinner."

"You have no right to break into this cabin and point a gun into my agent's face. You and your mercenary goons better get the hell out of here fast."

"I'm here to take Alex Krycek into custody, he's a dangerous man who's now at large because of the irresponsible actions of _your_ agents. My "mercenary goons" as you say, and myself are going to be searching the area around this lake for him so I suggest you and your agents stay out of the way, that is, if you don't want an accidental fire fight to break out."

"You're wrong," he growled. "the FBI has complete jurisdiction over any searches that are to be conducted in a federal park. And if you're threatening to interfere with our investigation I'll have you arrested right now." He paused to let his threat sink in I suggest that you and your men clear out of here fast."

"All right Mr. Skinner." Cancerman stomped his cigarette out on the floor and turned to leave. "My interests _will_ be protected. You'll be hearing from me very soon." A few minutes later they heard the two large sedans pulling away from the cabin.

"Where is he Mulder?" Skinner demanded. 

"I don't know, we capsized the canoe when they started shooting at us, I haven't seen him since."

The FBI began scouring the lake. Within minutes Skinner was on the phone calling for reinforcements to the search area. 

"Was he handcuffed Mulder?" Scully asked.

"No I let him out of the cuffs so he could help me paddle." Mulder explained to them that and Krycek were out on the lake and the situation surrounding Cancerman's arrival. They both thought it was odd that he would take a suspect out in a canoe but were glad when they considered it may have been Krycek's only chance of survival. 

"That was a brilliant move, giving him your ATM card, we'll be able to track him now."

"Basically he stole it, but thanks."

Within an hour a score of law enforcement agents were searching the area around the lake for the body or whereabouts of Alex Krycek. It was soon dark, but the search continued. The New York state police, who were assisting with the search, arranged to dredge the lake at first light. Mulder and Scully waited in the cabin while the search was being conducted. Mulder huddled by the fire trying to stay warm, within an hour the effects of the hypothermia had all but dissipated.

"If he's alive he'll come to us eventually Scully."

"Why do you say that Mulder, I don't think we'll ever see him again, unless he uses that ATM card and we capture him from that."

"Eventually he's going to realize that we're his only hope."

"What do you mean, we're his only hope? We're going to throw him back in prison Mulder. I think he already knows that."

"Yeah, but now he's free," he paused grimly, "or dead, ...and he'll probably think we'll make a deal with him for the information he has about the MJ-12 files and the activities of our cigarette smoking friend."

"We can't offer him anything Mulder, he's a murder suspect."

"Scully, we don't have anything on him except assault and battery."

Scully pensively considered what her partner was suggesting.

At around eight o'clock that evening Skinner received a telephone call from the director of the FBI ordering him to immediately discontinue the search. A few minutes later the police captain from the New York State troopers informed skinner that they had been order to discontinue in assisting with the search and that they would be unable to dredge the lake.

After Skinner returned to the cabin to inform them that the search had been discontinued, the FBI contingent caravanned back to Utica to take hotel rooms for the night. Scully and Mulder stayed over in the cabin just in case their former prisoner made an attempt to return. Late into the night they stayed up talking by the fireplace. Scully told her partner about her trip to Washington, her meeting with Skinner and the agents she had met on the plane.

"It was really strange running into this guy I hadn't seen in over two years, I hardly knew him at all when we worked in Quantico together, but we really hit it off during the plane ride back to Washington." She went on to tell her partner how she was planning on calling Steve Dzysoski as soon as they got back.

Mulder pretended to be interested, she had to know he would be just a little jealous. She seemed really happy though, that was what was important. He wished he could tell her how events in his life had changed in the last two days but he just couldn't bring himself to reveal the truth to her. She could probably accept it if he were gay or bi, even though it would change their relationship, but with Alex Krycek she would feel genuinely betrayed.

On the other side of the lake a man lay naked and shivering wrapped in blankets under a camp bed in a rustic hunter's shack which had been recently evacuated. At one point in the night he crossed a threshold, he realized he wasn't going to die of hypothermia and his body began to relax and produce its own heat again. He had heard activity all around him for hours and had lain perfectly still, but now the activity was gone and the woods were as quiet and still as a tomb. And he felt entombed, under the bed, naked, wrapped in dirty blankets unable to move for fear of discovery, but tomorrow he would arise. He was out of prison, alive, unshackled, beginning to realize just who he was and he had an ATM card. This certainly wasn't the worst situation with which he'd been faced. 

The End of "the Cabin"   
The sequel to this story is "the Island" and will be posted during the second week of October. Hopefully by then none of the main characters in this story will have been killed off in the season premier, as rumor has it.

 

* * *

 

From   
Tue Oct 22 22:11:54 1996  
Summary: "Slash" story. The follow-up to "the Cabin". After escaping from the FBI and the MIB's the previous autumn, Krycek calls on his former partner for help regaining his memory and bringing down Cancerman.  
It is rated NC-17 for extremely graphic descriptions of sex and for language and violence. Please do not read it if you are under 18 or if you are offended by these sorts of things. This story is the sequel to "the Cabin" which I recommend that you read first. Hopefully it has been archived by now  
Standard disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I'm only borrowing them for a short time. I will returned them dazed, yet unharmed, but perhaps with vague memories of bright lights, strange experiments and _not_-so-painful probes. C.C. and Fox Inc. owns them, so any money you may feel compelled to send to _me_ having enjoyed this story, please send directly to CC's 1013 productions. The gods know they could use it to give DD another raise!

* * *

The Cabin II: The Island  
by Cathy Lee

dedicated to Brenda Antrim (the *QUEEN* of xf slash!)

The East Village, December 24, 1996, 10:45 p.m.  
Two weeks earlier.

For two weeks he had laid up in a cheap hotel, confused, wondering what the hell to do next. He knew he'd have to hide and that his life was in danger but he wasn't sure from whom or even why. He'd immediately had to augment his paltry two-hundred-dollar-a-week stipend through the familiar if unsavory practice of theft, a practice he didn't specifically remember but which seemed to come to him naturally, almost instinctively. As the days and weeks wore on, the bruises and cuts inflicted by his captor healed. His greatest coup however, and a major turning point to his emotional disposition, came when he'd gotten himself a weapon. Three days earlier he'd lifted a nine millimeter Tec semiautomatic pistol from a gun shop in New Jersey. No easy feat considering that the guns were locked, the shop owner was armed to the teeth and security cameras were trained on him the whole time. To finally have a gun in his hand made him feel as if he'd regenerated an amputated limb. And with some new clothing, his hair growing back, and a self confidence that was returning by the day, he began to see a familiar man when he looked into the pitted lobby mirror of his seedy Queens' hotel.

Reconsidering his resources a short time later, a painfully obvious thought occurred to him. There was a whole wide world of defenseless people out there and it was time to begin milking them. Bars and nightclubs were his first hunting ground. Women who were willing to pick him up, take him home and put him up for the night were a gold mine. He could really cut down on the risky practice of armed robbery by manipulating their affections and thereby getting a free place to sleep, free food, and free sex. 

Where were the best night clubs and bars for this type of prowling? On the beautiful island of Manhattan of course. The second week of December he checked into a slightly better hotel, midtown, off of the Avenue of the Americas. But at 95 dollars a night he didn't plan to stay there often, not unless he intended to make robbery a full-time avocation. 

At first he'd had terrific luck. He was able to pick up a different woman every night for six nights in a row. After well over a year, making love to a woman again was unfamiliar to him, but so extraordinary and gave him such a feeling of power and control. He was only using them, he would tell himself, every night in a different club as he scooped out the pulchritude lining the bars. But after a few days of this, a persistent thought began to needle him. Why, after they had fed him, fucked him, bathed him and put him up for the night, did he feel like dirt when, the next morning, they would leave him with absolutely no intention of ever seeing him again.

Right before Christmas he hit a dry spell. With the bustle of the holidays, no one seemed to be interested in picking up a cheap fuck. He was starting to make a fool of himself by trying too hard in the Midtown clubs and the Village. Evidently it was time to move on to something else, safer territory, easier cruising. As much as he wished to avoid the scene he decided to try the gay clubs around Christopher Street so he headed west. Within an hour he found a nice-looking man who was falling all over him. A nice tight fuck, a place to spend the night, but the next morning the twit had the nerve to ask what he did for a living, ...and then to get indignant at his evasivness! No, this wasn't what he wanted, he realized then, he needed something more solid and enduring. He definitely wanted more from a person than blowjobs, toiletries and breakfast cereal. He needed to confide to somebody why the hell he was on the run, why he walked the alleys instead of on sidewalks and changed his name on an almost daily basis.

As the last days of Advent drew to a close, he had to return to a hotel several times. As much as the pickups were getting scarcer, he was getting wearier of the whole scene, especially since his principal criteria for selection had to do with their living situations. The idea of going from bed to bed across Manhattan became repugnant. But to give it up he'd have to steal more and more just to get by ...that was way too risky. 

He'd spent the day Christmas Eve walking around the island until it was time to make the rounds. But so many clubs were closed and the ones that were open were dead. Shit, he'd have to go back to the Boyzone again, a gay meat market that was always packed. Tonight especially it would be, since they were having a huge Christmas Eve party. First priority, get a buzz going, so he stopped in a neighborhood pub in Soho where the drinks would likely be much cheaper. It was another one of those Irish-themed places that seemed to appear on every block over the entire island. 

There weren't that many other people in the bar, after all it was Christmas Eve. There was a middle-aged couple towards the back who were having Irish coffees. Around their feet were heaped shopping bags full of wrapped Christmas presents, they were obviously on their way to some family gathering. Two young black men were sitting at a table drinking beers engrossed in a seemingly serious conversation. And that was all, except for her. She had just ordered another drink and was pretending to carry on a conversation with the bartender. She lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. Immediately he realized that she was exactly what he was looking for, pretty, vivacious, alone, and well on her way to becoming smashed. He stared at her for several minutes. From time to time she would quickly glance his way. He tried to read the bartender's lips, "I've never seen him here before." they seemed to be saying. Now She was laughing about something else. The bartender reached around and pulled a bottle of beer out of a beer cooler. He pooped the top as he walked down the bar and held it in front of him.

"That pretty lady at the end of the bar wanted to buy you," the bartender paused, grinning at him in a pathetic attempt to make a joke, "a beer," he finished by setting the bottle on the counter. 

He raised the bottle in thanks to her. She was practically giggling at him, "Thank you, Merry Christmas." Arising from his barstool he walked over to her. The closer he got, the more beautiful he realized she was. Long wavy brown hair appeared almost black in the dim bar light. Her neck was long with those sexy horizontal creases which, in his mind he always associated with Russian women, and her lips were so lush with a crimson shade of lipstick that showed in sharp contrast to her white skin. She was wearing jeans and a thick black ribbed turtleneck sweater. A brand new black leather jacket lay strewn over the barstool next to her.

"Hi, Merry Christmas, my names Kevin, thanks for the beer." He extended his hand for her to shake.

Her voice was really sexy, husky yet feminine. "My name's Mona. That'll be my Christmas present to you." She suggestively traced her finger along the rim of the bottle."

"What are your plans for Christmas, Mona."

"Get really drunk, go to work with a hangover, call out for a pizza when I get home. How about you?"

"Everything but the work part, I'm not getting pizza either, I'm going out to an Italian restaurant instead." He idling starting to fiddle with the cuff of her sweater, "Care to join me?" He was getting sexually aroused just standing next to this women and his own boldness was shocking him. He fought the temptation to bury his face in her hair.

Smiling and looking at her feet, ...this was too much for her, she wasn't used to this sort of thing. Part of her wanted to back away. He on the other hand was very good at this game and he'd been getting a lot of practice lately. He knew what she needed. She needed to be talked to more, she needed to know he was safe and she needed to be able to look him over to be sure she was really sexually attracted to him. 

"So you don't have a family here in New York I take it."

"No they're in Louisiana, ...N'Orleans."

Yes there it was, a slight, soft Southern accent. "I couldn't get back there this year, plus I have to work."

"I'm from Miami, my folks decided to go on a cruise this year for Christmas, that left us kids out in the cold. We were all going to get together at my sister's house but then her husband left her last month and she didn't want us to come anymore, so now I'm stuck here." He mixed the truths, half truths and blatant lies in a concocted story calculated to get the most sympathy. "The way I see it though, it'll all be over in a day and a half and we can all get back to normal life," He noticed that her glass was now empty "What are you drinking, its on me."

"Glen Fiddich on the rocks, I usually drink the cheap shit but I figured its Christmas, what the hell." She ground her cigarette out in the ashtray.

"I agree." He signaled for the bartender to bring another round. "So what do you do Mona."

"I'm a dancer. I have a masters in modern dance and movement from NYU. I work for several dance companies here in New York, kinda like freelance. How about you Kevin, what do you do?"

"I'm an unemployed electrical engineer."

"An unemployed electrical engineer, I didn't think there was such a thing."

"I was working for a company that had a contact to redesign the switching system for the New York public transportation facility. That job ended a week ago. I've decided I want to stay in New York so I'm looking for a job here. The company I worked for has a full-time position available for me back in Cincinnati but I don't think I want to go back there."

"But why not? Cincinnati's not so bad." 

He was hoping she would ask that. "Its just that I have an ex-fiance there." He glanced downward feigning a pained expression. "I don't think I can go back there, ...not now." 

A gentle hand came to rest upon his arm, "I'm sorry Kevin."

God she was beautiful, and she was falling for his lines. They continued to talk for several minutes. He interwove lie after lie with flattery and what he hoped would pass for humor. And she laughed with him. She reached over and ran her hand through the top of his extremely short hair. He picked up a lock of her hair and idly twisted it around his finger.

"You're so sexy." she said removing a cigarette from a pack in her purse. He reached over for a book of matches and lit it for her.

"You never answered my question, will you have diner with me tomorrow night?"

Laughing she shrugged her shoulders. "Sure, I guess so."

"I... I don't want to let you out of my sight before then." He quietly leaned forward and planted a gently kiss on her temple. Her skin was so soft and he could smell cigarettes and her faint perfume which had been applied hours earlier. "Spend the night with me." he whispered in her ear while giving her the most seductive look that he could muster, mouth slightly open, eyes lids dropping. He bit his lip waiting for her answer. 

She leaned away from him, flicking the end of her cigarette into the ashtray. "Man, your asking a lot, first you want dinner company and now you want me to sleep with you." 

Damnit!! He was striking out. He leaned back, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so forward, its just that ..." Damn what was he going to say, think of a lie, think of a lie, he _couldn't_ tell her he didn't have anywhere else to go. " ...I was afraid I would never get to see you again. I was afraid maybe you'd brush me off." He tried to gage her reaction, She wasn't backing away from him. Was that a smile on her luscious mouth? "I'm sorry if I was too forward, I'll go back to my hotel tonight and I'll come and pick you up tomorrow evening."

"Where's your hotel, ...Kevin?" Leaning forward, she seemed to be savoring his name.

Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all, he grinned to himself,. "My hotel's by Laguardia Airport. It's the Holiday Inn."

"Jeez, that's so far. Well I live right around the corner, want to walk me home?"

"I'd love to." He paid the bartender too large of a portion of the 200 dollars he had recently withdrawn from the ATM. As they were putting on their coats the bartender, who obviosly knew Mona well, called her over to the other end of the bar. He seemed to be lecturing her. She was nodding her head as she glanced back at her drinking companion waiting at the exit. She wrote something down on a napkin and handed it to the bartender. The little shit, he was probably trying to talk her out of leaving with him, he thought, why in the hell had he tipped him so well. 

Mona finally separated from the bartender. "I promise, ...I promise." she was saying trying to pull her hand away from his concerned grasp. Then, without looking back, she pulled on her jacket and headed for the door.

As soon as they got onto the cold street he embraced Mona placing a sensuous kiss on her lips. He felt her reluctantly part her lips to the persistence of his mouth and his hands. He pushed her up against the side of the building and firmly gripped her waist as he leaned into the kiss while exploring her softness with his tongue gently grinding his crotch against her hip. He kept having to remind himself to take it slow or she'd never let him stay with her. His body wanted to forcefully push her against the wall and fuck her brains out, but his mind kept telling him to play it cool, don't overwealm her or she'd dump his ass. 

Mona was startled by the man's forwardness, but what could she expect. She'd never picked up a guy in a bar like that before. Oh yeah, she'd picked up men before in bars, but she'd always been with a lot of friends, friends that would look him over for her, grill him, size him up. This was the first time she had ever done it alone. After she broke from the kiss, dazed and breathless, they began silently walking in the direction of her building. She didn't know what to say to him but she knew then that she wanted him, ...he was beautiful. 

"Do you want to come up for coffee? You can call a cab from my place, that way you don't have to wait in the cold."

"Actually I was planning on calling a cab from the bar."

"Oh no you don't have to do that, come on up." 

They walked up four flights of stair to her apartment. "I guess I should tell you I have a roommate but he's not here right now. He's in Virginia for Christmas." She unlocked the door and pushed it open for him. The first thing he noticed about the apartment was the smell of oil paint and then he noticed the paintings. The entire living room was stacked full of oversized canvasses, mostly life-sized portraiture. 

"My roommate is a painter, he actually uses his bedroom as the studio and he sleeps here in the living room when he has wet canvasses drying, which is most of the time." He noticed that aside from a few exceptions the paintings depicted male nudes some in sexual poses. Men with and without erections, two men's bodies entwined. 

"Your roommate is gay I take it?"

Mona laughed, "Yes, Matthew is, I guess it's pretty obvious." She paused, "These aren't even some of his more graphic paintings. Last summer he sold ten canvases to a private club depicting men having sex together. These are pretty innocent compared to those." 

He raised his eyebrows at the thought. "How do you live with these, day in and day out."

"Oh you get used to it. Its only the new ones that I really notice everyday. I really like them actually, I have names for them all, sometimes I talk to them. I kinda think they're pretty sexy, but most straight men that come here seem to have a problem with them." She continued to examine his face for his reaction. 

"I don't have a problem with them, I think they're really cool." He didn't want to tell her just how erotic he actually found them, that might freak her out. "I don't see how anyone could deny the sensuality."

"He's done a lot of pictures of me too, some are in my bed room, do you want to see them?"

"I'd love too." They walked through a small kitchen area and open the door to a tiny room crammed full of furniture, books, clothing and paintings. The paintings of Mona were nude also, and absolutely beautiful. In one she was sitting curled in an arm chair with her head thrown back, in another she was floating in orange space with her hair falling over her breasts. There was also another, rather strange picture. She was sitting on the armchair straddling a man's lap. They were obviously engaged in sexual intercourse.

He was extremely turned on staring at these pictures, especially the last one, "My god Mona, how did you pose for that?"

"Mostly from a photograph, a lot of these pictures started as photographs. That particular painting was faked, we never posed like that. As a mater of fact I never even met that guy, he was a model at the art institute. He was complied from sketches done about ten years ago." She paused briefly. "Kevin, I've never shown anyone my bedroom before, any man that is, unless I was planning on sleeping with him." 

He didn't need any other invitation. He immediately reached over for her and wrapped her in his arms. She seemed so slight to him, he could feel her rib cage even through her thick sweater. His mouth was all over her lips, her neck. He stopped momentarily, "Mona, is this okay?" She answered by kissing him back. He reached up under her sweater and cupped her braless breasts in his hand, thank god the pictures were accurate, they weren't too small, he preferred breasts that were slightly larger than average. He undressed her, and then himself. The pictures were indeed accurate, she had a slender, dancer's body, beautiful firm breasts with large brown nipples, soft shaved-away pubic hair. He cupped each nipple and sucked gently, then more roughly. He ran his hand through her pubic hair and cradled her genitals in his hand. He inserted his fingers gently into her, feeling her wetness. 

His movement within her became rhythmic and as one hand continued to fingerfuck her as she pulled him down onto her unmade bed. Mona pulled her body up alongside of his in a position for sixty-nine. They began to kiss and lick one another. He gasped with pleasure when Mona took his cock into her mouth and she began sucking him in earnest. She wasn't very good at it, he fought the temptation to tell her how since he'd had so much practice himself, but she was doing it the best she could. Her fervid, yet inept up and down movements over his shaft with her tight little mouth were so delectably frustrating to him. Meanwhile he set to work on her. 

He buried his face into the moistness of her vagina. He given oral sex to practically every woman he picked up in the last two weeks and everyone of them had been different. Some were gushers, some were dry. One woman had a clitoris had that stood out like a tiny penis. Mona, however, was perfect. She was sweet and moist. Her clitoris was the perfect size for putting in his mouth, sucking and licking. He held her gingerly beneath his lips and licked the round inside fold of her clitoris for several minutes while he continued to finger her. Mona was squirming from the intensity of the sensation, he would have her over the edge in minutes this way.

Momentarily he looked up, "Mona, can I make love to you? ...I want to be in you."

"Okay Kevin." she answered him softly and without hesitation,

He pulled himself around and covered her with his body. The softness of the breasts beneath his chest, her smooth thighs and calves encircling his legs was almost too lulling, the sensuality was almost too cloying. He knew at that moment that he was already falling in love with her and that he wanted to possess her totally. But the comfort and the sweetness needed to be replaced by something harder, something more intense and illicit. He almost cried to himself when he realized what he actually needed. This night he would allow himself to sink into her voluptuousness, but tomorrow, if she let him stay, he would begin a program of discipline and subjugation. "She'll be my possession," he thought to himself.

To make things a little more interesting he fucked her from behind. She yelped when his thrusts became too sharp. As he held her body close to his, immobile, he manipulated her clitoris to bring her to orgasm with him. Her contractions around his cock sent him over the edge and he finished himself off with several brutal jabs which had her squirming to get away from him.

When it was over she lay there on the bed, turned away from him, slightly shocked by the wholly physical nature of their lovemaking. Tears were welling in her eyes. It had never been this way before for her, so rough, so entirely animal. She briefly wondered if he would have raped her if she'd wanted to stop, but quickly dismissed the thought.

His orgasm took the edge of his carnal hunger, and he was able to focus more clearly and rationally on his perennial needs of shelter and food. He recognized the vexed look on Mona's face and realized he'd been too physically rough on her. He didn't want her to regret what they had just done, or her decision to let him spend the night. Time to pretend to be solicitous and "loving". He and showered her with sweet words, kisses and caresses. Eventually he felt the tense muscles on her back relaxing and the hint of a smile forming on her lips beneath his kiss. "Thank you Mona, you're so sweet and beautiful and so hot. Its been such a long time for me."

"It was wonderful." Her reply was slurred by sleepiness. She reached over and kissed him and curled herself along side him before passing out. He held her naked unconscious body tightly against himself for a long time. Later, he pulled the quilt up around them, tugging it under her chin and shoulders before falling asleep himself. 

He left her at noon the next day, it was inevitable, she had to go to work and he had to go back to his hotel room in Queens, or so he told her. They had spent the morning making love and talking and drinking coffee, wrapped around each other's bodies in bed. He made a special effort to be easy and unhurried with her body, exploring every inch of her with his fingers and lips.

She told him about her family and her roommate Matthew. They had been friends since high school, he the one out homosexual and she bohemian freak. They had both moved to New York together after two years at Tulane. Mona had studied dance and Matthew had begun painting. They continued to live together, they'd even thought about getting married for love but mostly out of convenience. 

Mona couldn't believe she was telling this to Kevin, she hardly knew him and she was actually scared of him. Then she said something that she immediately hoped her lover would interpret as a jest. "I think what would work out best for Matthew and me is for us both to marry a bisexual man that way we could have that sexual connection without actually having sex with each other."

He grinned. "Well, let me see his picture," he joked.

**************************************************

Later that day he took the number six train up to 42nd Street and started walking west. When he got to Seventh Avenue he turned north. He was in the theater district now, but this particular section of the district was definitely way, way off-Broadway. He turned into the narrow doorway of Bierce's Theater with a gaudy yellow sign overhead proclaiming "Exotic Dancing, Live Women On-stage, Private Dancing, XXX," down a narrow dark hall and through a set of swinging doors. Entering the club he was overcome by loud disco music and billowing cigarette smoke. He chose a small table in the middle of the surprisingly full club. Almost everything was black, the table tops, the floor and walls, the vinyl of the chairs, making the bright colored lights surrounding the stage and the garishness of the skimpy sequined costumes much more conspicuous. Of the three women on the stage, two were topless and the third was in the process of removing hers. There were several dancers working in the crowd as well, giving private lap dances to various men who seemed to be almost overwhelmed by the beautiful gyrating women hovering over them.

He ordered a three dollar coke and sat back to further survey the crowd. A man five feet away from him was slipping dollar bills into the sequined panty of a lithe black woman. Occasionally his hands would tentatively touch her waist and she would ask for more money. "I need some inspiration, baby" he heard her say. There were several similar scenes throughout the room. A tall woman with short blond hair, multiple earrings, and blush applied in the shape of Haley's Comet was gyatrating, strattled over the lap of man who continually bit his lip and said "Oh yeah" over and over. Every time he pushed a dollar into her panty she would brush her breasts over his face. Occasionally he would playfully bite at them and hand her another dollar. Why the hell were all these men doing here on Christmas, he wondered. What did they do, ditch their families after the presents were opened and go for a little walk because they were so fucking bored? They couldn't all be drifters or misfits like himself.

He spotted her a moment later, she was at the bar in the back talking to a man who was probably her boss. All she had on was a white long men's shirt tied around her waist, an emerald green satin thong panty and green pumps. She hadn't seen him yet, or if she had she was playing it cool. She flipped her long hair and flamboyant earrings around in a ridiculously contrived sexual manner which made him laugh to himself. Suddenly a tall blonde woman wearing little more than a Santa hat, appeared, and stood lewdly swaying in front of him.

"Merry Christmas sweetie, enjoying the show?" she asked. He stared at her tits and swallowed hard, they were beautiful, round, soft, perky perfectly proportioned, ...definitely surgery. The rest of her didn't matter, but those tits he wanted to grasp them in his hand, put his face on them. "We can have our own little private show right here, what do you say?" 

"Uh, ...no thanks, but ...uh, would you send her over here when she's through up there." He gestured to Mona who was just starting her routine alone, on stage.

She stood staring blankly at him for a few seconds until he pulled out a five dollar bill for her. "Starlight, sure I'll tell her she's got a request for a private dance, ...right."

"Yeah, that's right." Miss Perfect Tits moved away unobstructing his view of the stage. There was 'Starlight' making the best of her masters degree in modern dance and movement. She was on the stage for two songs and she went through the same routine at a different speed for both. He noticed that her style of dancing was a lot different than any of the other women, she continually ran her hands slowly over body, her inner thighs, her ass, her stomach, and through her hair. It was erotic all right and she was starting to get the attention she deserved. He licked his lips while he watched her, she had spotted him now and smiled nervously in his direction. Several men walked up to her and handed her dollar bills. He, on the other hand just waited. By the time she was finished, fifteen minutes later, he figured that she must have made at least thirty bucks, ...what a scam! A little later she came out into the club and walked over to him, unfortunately wearing the oversized shirt once again.

"What are you doing here Kevin?" Her voice was challenging.

"I came to enjoy the show."

"How did you know I worked here?"

"It was written on your calendar in the kitchen, I saw your sequined panties too, so I knew what you meant about being a professional dancer." He smirked. She stared at him for a moment with an irritated look across her face. "Dance for me" he asked. He tucked a dollar bill into her thong bikini.

"I really need for you to leave, the boss doesn't allow boyfriends and husbands in here."

"Boyfriends and husband?" he laughed. "I'm not your boyfriend, ...yet," he smiled mischievously at her.

"Dates or cheap pickups either."

"You'd better start dancing, he's looking over here, he'll suspect that you know me. One dance, ...please?"

"You'd better tip me." She took off her shirt and tossed it over to the side of the stage.

As she danced he tipped her well, and she deserved it. She crouched over him and swayed in time to the disco music that was blaring in the background. He gingerly placed his hands on her tiny waist, running them up and down over her ribcage as he continued to stuff dollar bills into her thong bikini. 

Eventually, since she was absolutely in control of the whole scene, he had the courage to ask. "Would it be okay if I touched your breasts?" 

"I have to keep dancing." was all she answered.

He hesitantly traced his fingertips over her ribcage and cautiously touched the very outside of her breasts. She threw her head back feigning arousal. Slowly his fingertips glided inwards towards her nipples. Her breast were shaking a little faster than the rest of her body so he slowed them down with his touch. He leaned forward and buried his face in her belly and tongued her belly button just barely tasting the sweat that had spiced her skin from hours of work.

"You can't do that" she said.

He jerked his head back suddenly and looked up at her, his hands on the outside of her breasts. He hurriedly took out a small wad of one dollars bills and buried them in her panty which was now bumpy from his contributions.

Mona danced in front of him for several more songs. He was so turned on by the way she moved her body that he wanted to hold her fast by the waist to keep her from being able to ever escape from him. But she sensed his possessiveness and deliberately tried to keep her distance by pulling back occasionally, averting her gaze. After she'd been with him for well over a half an hour she smiled. "I have to go after this song. They're signaling me that I'm up on stage next." 

"Come back," he pleaded. 

"I will." Then she left. 

But she didn't appear on stage immediately. Instead she disappeared for over twenty minutes. He was starting to get suspicious, she was probably back counting all the money he'd given her. He inventoried his remaining cash. Shit he was down to thirty-eight dollars. Must have spent over a hundred on those goddamned expensive cokes and tips. Guess he'd have to resort to robbery again in order to have enough for diner that night. It was already past five o'clock and he was supposed to be back at the apartment in less than three hours. Right when Mona was going back on stage he decided it was time to split.

Reluctantly he left the club and started cruising for an easy target. He must have been walking in the wrong direction because the streets seemed totally deserted. He passed an open grocery store, no customers inside. There was a elderly Korean man at the register stacking prepackaged brownies into a display. Piece of fucking cake.

He entered the store and pretended to look around for soda and a snack while he surveyed the scene. There was a video camera in the corner but absolutely no one else in the store. Keeping his head down and away from the camera, he picked up an overpriced bottled tea and a butterscotch brownie. He brought them up to the register to pay and when the elderly cashier open the drawer to give him his change he pulled out the Tec-9 millimeter and shoved it in his face.

"Hands up pops." he growled. The old man threw up his arms. He flipped the bag over which contained his soda and brownie. "All the money out of the register, in here, now."

The man was terrified he began loudly muttering in Korean. He didn't hesitate. He whipped the gun around and smacked him hard in the face sending the old man falling back against the cigarettes and condom display. He reached over the counter and grabbed the man by the collar yanking him up. "Shut up!" he yelled. He shoved the bag forward. "Put the money in the bag and shut up." 

The creak of a swinging door from the back of the store startled him. He turned around and saw a young Korean man shakily pointing a gun up towards him. He ducked down and started firing the Tec with deadly accuracy. Before he was even able to get off one shot, the young man's body slammed against the beer cooler and fell slumped onto the tile floor. The old man standing above him, was screaming now. He rose up from behind the front of the counter in time to see him pulling a shotgun out from underneath. Without a second thought he fired several bullets pointblank into his fragile body. Once again the man slammed back against the cigarettes, this time with blood flowing out of a large wound in the middle of his chest. 

All at once the store was overtaken by a eerie silence accentuated by the low electrical buzz of the overhead florescents. He reached into the cash drawer and started removing wads of cash and shoving then into the plastic bag. He walked over to the body over by the beer cooler. It was an attractive young man, not even twenty-five, probably the old man's son. He was still clutching the pistol in his dead fist as he lay in a small pool of blood collecting around his chest. He kicked the body hard. Damnit, why couldn't they just give him the money, it didn't even seem like much, probably less than a hundred dollars. Aloud he stated, "You old fucker, you killed your son by muttering like that." A drivers license was in the wallet in the back pocket. Robert Han, birthdate, January 14, 1974, shit the kid was only twenty-two. He removed two twenty dollars bills and dropped the wallet into the widening red pool, jumping when the beer cooler's condenser kicked on. It reminded him that he had to get out fast. Before splitting he grabbed two bottles of wine from the wine display. On his way out he briefly stole a glance at the blinking video camera in the corner of the store. Shit, no time to look for the video tape now he needed to run.

He ran out into the street and almost bumped into a older lesbian couple who were just entering the store. He ran past them and down the sidewalk. He ran and ran like a rodent, first taking the train all the way downtown and them uptown again. He went to a locker at Grand Central Station and retrieved a knapsack full of clothing before proceeding downtown again. Before going on to Mona's apartment he stopped briefly in a bar for a few drinks, to think and to count his money. With the forty he'd gotten out of the kid's wallet he had a total of three-hundred and sixteen dollars from the store robbery. Not bad for an armed robbery on Christmas day but shitty as hell for a double murder.

Even though he'd kept his head low the whole time he was in the store he was afraid that the camera had gotten a good shot of him when he'd first come to the register, and those women, they'd clearly seen his face. The police would be looking for him. They might even be able to identify him as escaped mental patient Raymond Shaw. Hell, if the FBI got involved they might even be able to identify him as Alex Krycek. He grimaced when he thought about the people who were looking for him. He could very well be fucking cooked because of this slip up. He really ought to leave town but he couldn't bear it just when things were starting to get going with Mona. 

After scooping out a place for diner he arrived at the apartment a half an hour late. To get her to ask him to keep staying with her, Alex lied and said he had to be out of his hotel the next day. She fell for it and said he could stay there until he found a place. They had diner at a surprisingly busy Italian restaurant after which they went back to her apartment and he spent the night again. The next morning he woke up to the voice of another man in the bedroom crouched down whispering to Mona. Without opening his eyes he listened in to their conversation. 

"I took the train back last night, What's his name."

"Kevin, he's really cool."

"He's cute. Where'd you find him?"

"Donahue's, hey, I saw him first."

"How's he like my paintings?"

"He likes them okay." She began whispering very low. "I really don't know anything about him. I don't know whether to believe what he's told me about himself or not. There's something strange about him. I mean, he brought this backpack of clothes from his hotel last night. That seems really odd to me. If he was really working as a electrical engineer here for several weeks don't you think he'd have a little bit more luggage than that. And the way he showed up at Beirce's, that was really strange."

"Come on into the kitchen and talk to me, he might wake up." Mona arose naked from the bed and followed the man out of the room grabbing a bathrobe from the door frame.

Alex lay on the bed waiting for an appropriate length of time to elapse before making his own entrance into the kitchen. They were talking more loudly now but he couldn't here a word they were saying through the door. A few minutes later he arose, pulled on just a pair of jeans and entered the kitchen. Mona was standing there in her bathrobe with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Matthew, as it turned out was very nice looking, though obviously gay. He was wearing black jeans with combat boots and had a full-length black oilcloth overcoat with several pink triangle and rainbow pins on the lapels. 

"Good morning everybody. You must be Matthew", he extended his hand which Matthew shook. Alex deliberately locked his gaze with that of the other man letting him see his eyes quickly sweep over his body. He bit his lip quickly and lightly, just enough to let the other man know that he appreciated what he saw. From the very first night with Mona he'd realized that he'd have to win over her roommate if he was going to be able to get to stay with her, and considering the conversation they were likely having, this was as good a time as any to begin.

"Nice to meet you Kevin." Matthew answered him with a quick sneer. Just to let him know that he was already on to Alex's game. It wasn't going to be easy.

"I love your paintings." Every artist's vanity was seducible.

Matthew seemed genuinely pleased. He relaxed a little, letting down his guard against Alex's perfidious charms. "Thanks, you really do, what is it exactly that you like about them?" 

"They are extremely well executed. I especially like the way you have treated the space behind the figures, the figures that are floating in colored space. The cool skin tones and the evenness of the paint application on the figures themselves seem to be fighting the electricity of the color and the rough application of the background paint."

"Yes, that's intentional. The colors themselves are symbolic. Even though pink has been associated with homosexuality, yellow is the true color of homosexuality, that's why so many of my figures appear on yellow backgrounds. I often paint Mona with an orange background because orange is the color of happiness and life, green is the color of new life, blue is the color of sacredness, black, death and mystery, purple, nobility and opulence, red, blood or luxury, red and black together is always political. There's other's too.'

"What do you associate with the color pink?"

"Artificialness, false innocence, I hardly ever paint people with a pink background because I really don't want those kinds of people in my house." he laughed. "These are more cultural associations for myself than universal symbols. I do believe however that my associations and beliefs are a product of our culture." Alex nodded, pleased that he was beginning to win him over.

"What do you think about the figures themselves, their actions?" he asked in a little bit more of a challenging tone. 

"I think that they are beautiful. The ones I've seen are very sensual."

"Would you like to see the rest." 

Alex almost grinned, how easy it was for him to find the right button to push with just about everybody.

Mona grabbed his arm and pulled him close to her body. "Oh no he's going back to bed with me, he can look at your paintings later." She started to pull him into the bedroom.

"No no I got to go, I have to check out of my hotel by eleven. All my stuff's still there and I've got to try and find another hotel." 

"Why don't you come back later, after you find a place."

"Sure what time?"

"About six, I'm going to work at Bierce's for just a few hours this afternoon, I'll cook for all of us."

"I have a model coming over today."

"He can stay for diner too, we'll rent some movies and make it a little party."

Alex spent the rest of the day shopping for different clothes so he could convince Mona that he really _did_ have a suitcase somewhere. He decided to tell Mona that he was going to be staying at the same hotel, but since he hadn't reserved a room continuously throughout the week, his room had been sold for the next three days. He would tell her that the hotel had agreed to hold his luggage since he'd be returning. After three days he would offer to pay part of the rent if Mona would let him stay there until he found a job and his own apartment. After a few weeks he might even tell her that he was actually on the run from the police. The details of that story could be worked out later. By then hopefully she would be in love with him and completely under his control. Matthew also could be under his control by then. He'd pose for him, he'd let Mona share him with Matthew, hell, he'd even encourage it. Getting those two protecting and supporting him wouldn't be too hard as long as he played his cards right. 

He needed to get his memories back. He couldn't remember what had happened to him from the time he was getting ready to leave Hong Kong until the time he realized he was locked up in prison with a different name and a different past, but somehow he knew that the missing time held the key to getting his whole life back. Mulder had mentioned something about a tape. There was important information on that tape which was very valuable to him. If only he could just find that tape or at least remember specifics about it, he'd have a lot more leverage in dealing with the FBI and his real enemies. But until he had a better grasp of what the tape and his former life were all about, he didn't intend to contact anyone. The few hours he had spent talking to Dr. Pomerantz at the cabin in the Adirondacks five weeks earlier had been so helpful. Hopefully he'd be able to find someone in New York to help him, someone he could trust.

He took a plastic card out of his back pocket and palmed it in his hand. It was the closest thing he had to any kind of card or ID and it didn't even have his name on it. He ran his thumb over the raised letters and recalled the man to whom the card belonged, "FOX MULDER." There had definitely been something there, it hadn't just been sex. It had been a thread of something valuable he could use to begin putting his life back together. But right now the card represented a small FBI stipend of two hundred dollars a week deposited without fail every Monday morning at ten AM. Chicken feed really, considering the city in which he'd chosen to hide. He glanced at the watch he had recently shoplifted. Five-thirty, time to get back to the apartment and the happy little menage. Diner and a movie tonight, ...and a continuing seduction, he would see to it.

***********************************************************

Washington D.C., Friday afternoon, March, 21, 4:15 p.m.

For several months they'd been tracking him through the use of the stolen ATM card. Almost immediately he had settled somewhere in New York City. The Lone Gunmen had traced his path throughout the city, and sometime in early January he had settled in the Lower East side. At first he has been careful to spread the use of the card around but in the last six weeks he had been using the card exclusively at three ATM machines concentrated in a four block radius of Alphabet City. Suddenly the card hadn't been used for two weeks. Langley had a grim prediction, "I think he's been busted by the pigs, I can't imagine he's been living in New York City on 200 dollars a week without augmenting his income through some type of theft. Either that or his enemies got to him."

"He'll show up, if he was dead don't you think there would've been a body."

"Not necessarily, they're still looking for Jimmy Hoffa."

"Its probably on some garbage barge now, as we speak, minus arms, legs and head, going out to sea."

"Jesus, Frohike, you're sick."

"I was only trying to cheer you up Mulder."

Somehow the vision Of Alex Krycek's remains, hacked to pieces amid debris and filth, was actually sickening to Mulder. "They'll want us to know if they get him. They'll leave his body where it can be found or send us a message. That'll be a warning for me to back off."

Beyers had another idea, "He may have regained access to the MJ-12 files and he's selling secrets again."

"I'll check with our fine friends over at CIA to see if anyone's seen him in the last few weeks." The next Thursday morning, 10:50 a.m.

For over a week no leads had panned out. Mulder was starting to doubt they would ever hear from Krycek again when suddenly Scully noticed a report of a New York City man, fitting Krycek's description, named Kevin Cain who was wanted for the murder of Matthew Delaney, also of New York City. On March 20th Delaney's body had been found in the trunk of his car at a rest stop in Lowell Massachusetts tortured and shot in the head execution style. According to Delaney's roommate, Mona Perry, Cain had been living with them in their Lower East Side apartment for several months and both men had been missing since March 16th.

"I'm going to fly up to New York tomorrow to interview the roommate." Mulder studied the report and a photograph of a man that was unmistakedy Krycek. "We should have tried apprehending him months ago, Matthew Delaney might still be alive." 

Scully tried not to sound too irritated, "No kidding Mulder, although personally I didn't think Krycek was any longer capable of torture and murder but I guess I was wrong. He must have come a long way towards getting his memory back."

"Scully I don't think Krycek committed the murder. Delaney was probably just a bystander. It's not Krycek's style, especially the torture. Why would he turn around and bite the hand that feeds him?"

"Huh, like that's the first time. In case you haven't noticed Krycek's made quite a little career out of biting the hand that feeds him. There could be any number of reasons why Krycek would've shot Delaney. Blackmail, for instance."

Mulder briefly considered the possibility that Krycek had killed Matthew Delaney, he supposed it was possible, the man was totally unpredictable. It had been his own decision not to pursue Krycek in New York. The closer they were likely to get to him the closer the consortium would be also, they definitely had insiders at the FBI. No, Mulder had believed that Krycek would eventually contact him. He had information they needed and they were willing to offer make a deal for immunity from prosecution. In all actuality, however, they really had nothing on him, there was no evidence that he had committed either the murder of Melissa Scully or William Mulder. The idea that he would be charged with espionage or treason was ludicrous since no one in the State Department or the Pentagon was willing to admit that the secrets he was selling even actually existed. 

"If you don't mind I would rather stay here in Washington to continue investigating the hospital murders."

They had been working on a troubling case recently in Virginia, where hospital patients had been ritualisticly murdered in their homes after being released. Mulder thought of another reason Scully would want to stay in town. Since November she had been dating another agent from Boston who had been temporarily assigned to Washington. She'd been reluctant to leave town for any reason since the affair had started.

Mulder really couldn't wait until the guy was sent back to Boston. He was bad for her. He was a married man giving her the old, "my wife doesn't understand me," routine and worst yet Scully was falling for it. While explaining the situation recently he had actually heard her say, "His wife doesn't understand him, Mulder." at which he had burst out laughing. Nor was Scully putting the same amount of passion into her work that she had been previously. She was still efficient as hell but she seemed to lack the enthusiasm for putting down him wild ideas with her cold scientific reason.

"I guess I don't mind going by myself. Do you have a date with the creep again."

Scully rolled her eyes. "I wish you wouldn't continue to refer to him as "the creep". His name is Steven. Yeah I have a date with him tomorrow night. I see him almost every night I'm in town."

Mulder decided to let it drop. He really didn't dislike Dzysokski, it was just that he had lost a lot of respect for him when he found out that Dzysokski was sneaking around behind his wife's back. He also really resented that Dzysokski had caused him to lose respect for Scully. He was debasing her, forcing her to accept the role of the other woman. When she first found out she had been ready to leave him but gradually she had rationalized continuing the affair. And Scully deserved so much more.

"I'm going to lunch now. I'll be stopping by the travel office too so I may be a little late getting back."

"I'm waiting for some lab reports that should be here any minute so I'm eating in today. See you later."

After a smoked turkey croissant and potato salad at the pretentious and overpriced sandwich shop around the block from the FBI building, he stopped by the travel office to arrange for flights and accommodations for his trip to New York, then he returned to his basement office. As soon as he walked in the door Scully greeted him waving a piece of paper in his face.

"I have something for you that you're going to love. This fax just came for you." She handed Mulder the flimsy piece of fax paper. On it was typed a short message;

-IMMEDIATELY PICK UP A CERTIFIED LETTER THAT IS BEING HELD FOR AGENT FOX MULDER AT THE FBI LOBBY POST OFFICE-

"Scully, do you have any idea where this came from?"

"Yes it was sent from a public fax machine in Portland Maine."

"I think this might be Krycek." He was already on his way out the door.

She called after him, her voice trailing off when she realized he was out of hearing range. "Could be _any_ mysterious contact that you have to get in touch with." Scully threw her hands up in mock confusion. Mulder received cryptic messages like this all the time. It usually turned out to be some crackpot or an anonymous female admirerer. 

**************************************************

Once at the lobby post office, Mulder received the thick white envelope from the postal clerk. There was no address on it for either, return or delivery, just the zip code of the FBI office and his name. Mulder managed to hold off ripping it open until he was back in his office.

There inside, was a brief handwritten letter from Alex Krycek. Also wrapped up gingerly in packing material were what appeared to be a small pile of metal specks.

"Scully, I think he's sent us his implants."

Scully walked over to examine the tiny chips. She scooped them up and carried them over to a microscope with genuine curiosity "My god I can't believe it, there are more than I thought, ... there's thirteen of them here and with the four that I removed that would be a total of seventeen chips implanted along his spinal column."

Mulder was pouring over the letter. "He wants me to meet him the day after tomorrow." He handed the letter to Scully. Scully read the letter silently. Krycek was waiting for him at a small motel in Maine on a island accessible by ferry only. He instructed Mulder to go by his house in Tacoma Park to retrieve a number of items including a laptop computer, clothes and some weapons.

"I don't think we wants me to come, I think the invitation's just for you." She handed back the piece of paper without looking at her partner.

Mulder paused when he considered the implications. He would have to face those possibilities as professionally as he could. 

Scully swiveled her chair around, "It's addressed to you Mulder, he never mentions my name. Here, he says come alone, and don't mention this to anyone, I guess that includes me so I'll just stay in town like I was planning." She turned around and focused her attention back to the implants. She no longer had any desire to pursue the Krycek case. She was so frustrated and disgusted from their experiences the previous November when they had sprung him from a mental institute only to have him escape from them just when he could have been of any use. Now Mulder was talking about making a deal with him which only made her sick to her stomach when she thought they might let him get away with murder. She no longer wanted anything to do with it, so she just decided to let Mulder handle everything.

"Scully, please come along, what if I need backup."

"No, I'm not going to go, its not a real assignment so I have no obligation to go with you. What if its _them_, Mulder, yanking you around. ...Besides we're too far behind here, we'll never get this report done."

"I think what I'll do is fly to New York tomorrow as I planned, and rent a car from there. I don't think I'll go to see the roommate until on the way back. That way I can get Krycek's side of the story first."

"Why don't you just go and arrest him Mulder, he's a sitting duck."

Mulder thought about it for a minute, he had no satisfactory answer to give Scully, but she knew the arrest was to be made entirely at his discretion and that she would respect that unquestionably.

"I want to get his side of the story first, Scully, and see what he has to offer us." 

Scully let out an exasperated sigh. But that was all she would do or say in the way of criticism of his handling of the case. She turned her attention back to the lab reports she had recently gotten back from the murders they were investigating.

Later that afternoon Mulder drove up to a small 1930's era bungalow on a quiet street in Tacoma Park. Crocuses were blooming through the pachysandra that covered the entire front lawn. He mounted the extremely steep front steps and let himself in with a key that was hidden up under a window sill on the front porch as instructed in the letter. Inside the house was cold, and there was no electricity. It was sparsely furnished, but looked comfortable and neat, just what he had expected from a man like Krycek. Besides the furniture there was hardly anything in the house besides family photographs, dead house plants and various items of sports equipment; a socerball, a basketball, foils and a fencing mask. 

In the bedroom it became apparent that the house had been searched. Some of the drawers were dumped out and the mattress was cut open in several spots. Mulder searched around quickly for the items that Krycek had asked for. He located the computer in a corner on the desk. He looked for the weapons that Krycek had asked for but was only able to find the Baretta semiautomatic pistol. The rifle which was supposed to be under the bed was gone. That was just as well, he could carry handguns on the airplane as a law enforcement agent but a rifle was another story entirely. He packed up a large bag full of clothes, Krycek didn't really have that much. He had no need for the six or seven suits in his closet but he took almost everything else, including sweatshirts, jackets, an overcoat and several pairs of shoes. On the way out the door Mulder hastily grabbed a foreclosure notice taped up to the window. Too bad, he thought to himself. According to the notice the house was to be put on the market within the month.

The next morning Mulder rented a car in New York and began his drive to Maine. Within a few hours he was cursing himself for not flying somewhere closer to the island like Portland or even Boston. But he supposed changing his travel plans at the last minute might arouse suspicion in the wrong quarters. The Friday afternoon traffic around the Boston area was hell. Mulder didn't cross the Maine border until almost five. After driving through southern Maine for about an hour he decided he'd better find out about the ferry schedule so he stopped at a highway information office. The last one was already gone, it had left at three in that afternoon. The next ferry wasn't until eleven the next morning and it was already booked full for cars. Mulder would have to leave his car on the mainland and walk when he got over to the island. Since he was exhausted and he needed to get some sleep, he decided to hold off driving the additional hour and a half to the ferry dock until the morning. After checking himself into a small hotel he began reviewing a file he had compiled regarding Alex Krycek.

Lying in bed that night he considered how he'd handled the case so far, strictly unprofessionally and invariably inconsistently. He had completely ignored the FBI guidelines for pursuing suspects, and furthermore the Krycek case wasn't even his. It had been passed to another office over eleven months earlier and that office had immediately rubber stamped it inactive. Officially it was only a missing persons case. There was never any real evidence of Krycek's involvement in murder or espionage. Mulder was the only person, along with his partner Scully in whom he confided and his boss Skinner, who had any inkling of just how embroiled his former partner had been with that shifty, ephemeral shadow government, the consortium, the workings of which he could only hope to understand.

He though about his partner, lately more than ever, she seemed sick of the whole thing, every aspect of his passion for revealing the truth. He was beginning to think it was Dzysokski's influence on her. He was even more of a hard-nosed skeptic than she ever was. The two of them must have had a big weekend planned together, otherwise she would have definitely come with him. He just hoped she remembered to feed his fish. 

Friday night, 6:25 p.m.

Scully didn't have anything exciting planned for Friday evening with her boyfriend Steve, they were going to fix dinner together and watch some movies on the VCR. Usually she wasn't a very adventurous cook, she stuck to the same recipes her mother had made all while they were growing up. Tonight, however she was going to try something relatively exotic, a Thai noodle dish called Pad Thai. She had gotten a recipe from a friend and had spent over an hour going out of her way that evening to shop for the unusual ingredients from a Thai grocery store. There, she had also purchased carryout Tad Mon, which along with the Pad Thai would make a perfect dinner. She began soaking the rice noodles and assembled the other ingredients for the dish, fish sauce, eggs, shrimp and a small amount of minced pork, peanuts, cilantro, hot peppers and various other items. She heard a knock on the door and went to greet her boyfriend.

Scully and Steve had been sexually intimate almost from the first week they had known each other. She had given herself to him out of a true need for a deep intimacy, deeper than anything she was ever able to get from the handful of otherwise very satisfactory relationships that made up her emotional life. Her mother loved her like only a mother could love a daughter, she was the Dana's backbone. Her brothers, although somewhat distance from her geographically and emotionally, had become fatherly influences. She had many female friends, however none of them were the kind of totally honest and open friendships which she craved, a kind of friendship not experienced since high school. 

In a lot of ways her relationship with her partner Fox Mulder had come the closest to what she really needed. She could even call him her best friend, they could talk about almost anything together. But he was also a very attractive man who always made her feel sexy, always took the time to complement her looks, open doors for her, felt compelled to offer to pay the check when they were out together. Yet he'd always remained somehow aloof and unattainable, almost as if the complements and curtesies he'd extended to her were more appropriate for a sister or an aunt.

It had taken several weeks for her to get used to him after they met, but as she did, she had rapidly gotten to like him, ...too much in fact. At night she would sexually fantasize about him, when she masturbated she thought of him. It had become almost difficult for her to keep a strictly professional demeanor in the office. As their friendship grew she continually repressed her sexual feelings. Then one day, about eight months after they had started working together, she arrived at the office and realized that her almost obsessive crush on him was over. No longer would she have to fight to keep it out of her voice inflection. No longer would she shy away from looking him in the eye when he paid her a complement. Now she would be able to deal with him for strictly what he was, her partner with whom she would often entrust with her life, and her best friend. It was a liberating feeling. She knew now from experience why everyone called it a "crush." But somehow this liberation was accompanied by a melancholy sense of loose. As if she had deliberately killed something within herself which had been practically debilitating, yet at the same time exhilarating and beautiful.

A few weeks after that Dana noticed something peculiar. Mulder couldn't look her in the eye sometimes, as if he were trying to hide something. He was inappropriately solicitous to her at times and then at other times, inappropriately callous as if to overcompensate. He started to leave her cute little notes around the office or to leave messages on her answering machine even when he knew she wasn't home. Then she started to notice the affect her appearance would have on him. If she wore something low cut or tried to wear her hair in a sexy style he would seem slightly agitated when she stood close to him. And she would catch him raking her over with his eyes. She was no longer the aunt or the sister to him, that was apparent. She could have led him around by the nose if she had wanted to, and in truth she was a still little resentful that he had never noticed her all those months she had practically obsessed over him. Play it cool, she told herself, he would get over his little crush on her just like she had gotten over hers on him. Maybe someday, she told herself, they would get together finally, marry, and have a house full of children. But in the meantime they would have to work together as partners, trusting, totally open with each other, but emotionally unattached and definitely uncommitted. 

Scully let her boyfriend in and greeted him with a kiss. He looked splendid, as usual. He was so handsome, tall, beautiful, and smiled with dimples. And that sexy Boston accent drove her crazy. He was still wearing his suit from work so he immediately took off his jacket and loosened his tie.

They chatted for a few minutes and then moved into the kitchen. "Would you like a glass of wine Steve?" she asked as she helped herself from the bottle in the refrigerator.

"From you, I'd love one." Steve hugged her petite form from behind as she reached for another glass. He glanced over at the kitchen counter where the noodles were soaking and various ingredients were assembled for Pad Thai including limes and two heads of garlic.

"Umn, Pad Thai, thanks Scully, I love it, its a good thing we don't have to go to work tomorrow."

She turned around in his arms and kissed him, "For lots of reasons. What movies did you get?"

"Well, this being Friday night, most of the latest releases were checked out so I got two old favorites, 'the Godfather part III', and 'the Manchurian Candidate.'" He held up the video boxes as he pulled them out of the yellow bag.

"I've never seen 'the Manchurian Candidate' but 'the Godfather part III'?"

"It's great, with Andy Garcia," He launched into his perfect imitation, "'Gemme da order boss, I'll make 'im dead.'"

Scully started laughing. "Okay, help me fix diner and then we'll watch the movies."

"Under one condition."

"What's that?"

"You put on that purple teddy I gave you last week, I get so turned on watching women cook in lingerie."

Scully started laughing, "Okay." she agreed. She turned to go to her bedroom but he grabbed her arm to stop her. 

"I'm not asking for high heels, but stockings and a garter belt would be nice."

"I've got a better idea, you just wait, it'll be a surprise." Scully turned to go to her bedroom. 

"Where's your partner this weekend?" Steve called from the kitchen.

"Oh, did I ever tell you about the Krycek case? That guy that used to work with him who turned out to be a criminal?"

"You mean that FBI agent, the one who you said had amnesia something last fall?"

Scully called back from her bedroom. "Yeah, well my partner thinks he may be able to track him down this weekend."

"Really, where?"

"Oh, I don't know, New York City I think. ...I know, Maine."

Steve heard a closet door slam in the bedroom. "You decided not to go with him?"

"I'm so disgusted with the whole thing, I'll tell you why in a minute." She called back.

A second later she emerged from the bedroom and Steve was truly flabbergasted. She had on a skin tight, see-through purple lace teddy with only a lace thong in the back, black thigh-high leather stiletto healed boots and crimson red lip stick.

"Oh my fuckin' god! Dana!" He immediately reach over and buried his face between he breasts. He gently bit at the nipples through the lace.

"Hey now, we have to cook dinner, you made a deal."

"I want to fuck you with those boots on."

"I don't know if they'll fit you Steve, I wear a women's size six and a half." She grabbed the garlic and started pealing the cloves.

Steve wouldn't let go of her, he ran his hands over her body, grasping her asscheeks, groping her breasts, mussing her hair. He lustfully murmured into her ear, "The only thing I like better than watching a women wearing lingerie cook, is watching a women wearing lingerie cook who's just been fucked." He traced his finger over the lace teddy, between her breasts and down her stomach. When he reached her hips he gently pulled the teddy to one side. He continued tracing his finger through her pubic hair and through her labial folds, ...she was already soaking. He dipped his finger into that viscous wetness spreading it around, over her clitoris, rubbing gently in a circular fashion. And occasionally he would bring his finger up to his mouth, just to taste her.

"Oh Steve," she gasped. She pushed herself up onto her tiptoes for a better angle to grind her ass into his crotch. He continued to gently groping her breasts as he worked on her clitoris.

"I'm going to eat you, and then I'm going to fuck you, before we eat dinner. And then you're going to cook diner all fucked and satisfied. Then we'll watch a movie and then I'm going to make love to you again."

"Oh Steve, okay." She was so easy. He lead her to a chair in the living room and dropped onto his knees in front of her. She draped her leather clad calves over his shoulder as he lowered his face between her thighs.

Of all the women he had ever given oral sex to, Dana was definitely the sweetest. If she could be said to taste like anything, it would be sugar, her smell reminded him slightly of pears, ...but completely sexual. He pushed his tongue into her vagina and held it there for a second, then he licked his way up to her slightly swollen clitoris and began ditteling rapidly back and forth. He felt her thighs tensing around his neck, he could smell her boots, definitely real leather, she must have spent a small fortune on them. She moaned and ran her fingers through his hair. Her little clitoris seemed to be growing larger under the ministrations of his tongue. He started to finger fuck her gently, pulling the lace thong of her teddy further aside to gain fuller access to her opening. He rocked two fingers forward, in and out of her in a gentle but insistent sexual rhythm.

"Oh yes Steve that's it, oh yes, please don't stop, a little higher, oh yes that's it."

He glanced up at her, biting her lip, head thrown back rolling from side to side against the back of the chair, the red hair in sharp contrast to the beige of the furniture. He could always tell when she came, it was definitely physical, she could never fake it with him. With his thumb he began messaging the area below her vagina and gently tweaking her asshole. With his spare hand he fondled her breasts, rubbing his hands over the nipples, occasionally caressing her soft neck, her lips, her small waist. 

A few moments later he heard her panting become uneven, her nails came out on his scalp, barely digging with a throbbing pulse which imitated her own impending orgasm. And then it came. She screamed quietly -she was never very loud- and she dug her nails even harder into his scalp. Her vagina contracted over and over, around his fingers and her slick fluid soaked his hand. When her orgasm subsided, he lovingly grasped her clitoris beneath his teeth, and pretended to yank it back and forth like a dog with a shoe, complete with growling noises. His tongue and lips found their way to her opening and he licked as much of her sweet ejaculate into his mouth as possible.

"Okay Dana get up" But how could she, her knees were weak from one of the most beautiful orgasms she had ever had. It rivaled masturbation in intensity. She lay there, spent. Steve was already undressing. She loved watching his beautiful body revealed, as piece after piece of clothing was thrown aside. Flat stomach, muscular arms, his proportions were perfect. And that gorgeous smile with that perpetual smug grin, god, she could easily fall in love. 

The last thing he removed was his boxers, he was always a little shy about revealing his erection. He chalked that up to years of catholic education. He pulled off his boxers and there it stood, straight out just like a flag pole, seven inches and very thick. Lest he have her staring at it he pulled Dana onto her feet and embraced her lustfully. He turned around pulling her with him so that his back was to the chair. Then he roughly lifted her up by the buttocks and in one swift movement impaled her upon his cock. She gasped when he entered her and they fell back together on the chair with her on top. Dana brought her leather clad legs up around his sides, pushing her knees into his shoulders as she fucked him. In this position he had full access to her breasts with his mouth and she resumed stimulating her clitoris against his lower abdomen. He hurriedly pulled the lacy covering off of her shoulders and away from her jiggling breasts. His mouth and teeth found her nipples and teased them, sucking and playfully biting, they were hard and sweet like two little cherry pits. By the rib cage he grasped her small body and pushed her up and down on top of him. She was so slick from her orgasm he slid in and out with ease. The tight insides of her vagina continually messaged his penis as he moved her body over his rigid shaft. The look in her eyes of profligate abandon as he slammed into her, her red hair falling across his face, was enough to push him over the edge. He held her tight against him as he pumped spurt after spurt of his seed into her, mingling with her own slickness. 

Dana felt herself cumming again, the immensity of cock packed into her, and the feel of cum gushing forward, were too much. She shuddered, gripping him within her, milking him. She cried out and threw her head back, almost loosing her balance on top of him, but he caught her and held her down, moaning as his orgasm began to subside.

Dana feel back onto Steve's chest and they lay still for a few minutes, breathing together, enjoying the familiarity of each other's bodies, savoring the pleasure they had shared. They kissed deeply, more as an affirmation of their feelings for one another than as an expression of their shared sexuality. When Dana got up she deliberately dripped cum all over her lover's chest and stomach.

"Owwyuk, you slimed me!!!"

"You slimed me first, I was only paying you back."

"Here," he rose up to adjust Dana's skimpy teddy back over her genitals. "I want you to wear it just like this, I want to see this thing soaked with cum. It should be running down your leg while you cook, that way you'll really have that 'I've just been fucked' look."

Scully looked at him like he was crazy, and she laughed. "Steve, my thighs'll rub together and I'll get a rash from all this cum."

"Then keep your legs spread." He stood back to examine his lover. Her hair was a mess, lipstick smeared over her face, a teddy that was falling away from her breasts. Her thighs were greased with cum from both of them, and those boots, god those boots, she had worn them the whole time. He hoped she was planning on making him lick them. 

After diner they put the plates in the dish washer and sat down to watch one of the movies. Steve had redressed and Scully had insisted on wearing a bathrobe in spite of her boyfriend's protests. As the open credits to "the Godfather III" were rolling a small chirping sound came from the direction of the bedroom.

"My phone or your phone?" he asked. 

"Mine's right here, must be you." Steve went into Scully's bedroom to retrieve his phone from his coat jacket. When she paused the video she was able to hear bits and pieces of his conversation."

"Dzysokski here. ...Tonight, what time? ....Yeah that wouldn't be a problem. ...I heard about it, ...my source. ...I don't know how, I wasn't able to find out. ...yes, in fact she did. A northeastern state, ...yes she is, a northeastern state, ...that's right, that's the one. Okay, see you in an hour." Steve turned off and stowed his phone back in his coat pocket. He reemerged from the bedroom.

"Steve who was that?"

"Scully, I'm sorry, I have to go up to Boston immediately. They need me for a surveillance project right away. They think there's going to be a major mob deal going down either tonight or tomorrow and they need my team to set up the surveillance equipment for it."

"How are you going to get up there, there aren't any more flights to Boston tonight?"

"I have no idea what my boss has arranged but they're sending a car over for me in an hour so I have to go."

"Steve, tell me honestly, was that your wife, is she in town?"

"No." he answered firmly.

"Or was that your partner Johnson tipping you off that she's coming over to your hotel room tonight?"

Dzysokski's tone was becoming noticeably irritated. "No Scully, neither, it was the section chief in Boston telling me he needs me immediately. Now I have to go. I know you value your job just as much as I do mine so I would expect you to be a little more understanding about these things."

"Steve, Steve, I'm sorry." She went over and hugged him. "I just hate to see you go like this." She dropped her arms and looked him in the eye, "Especially when I know you're going to be seeing your wife while you're in Boston."

"Scully, I'm married to her, you don't expect us to not stay in the same house together, do you? My god, I want to see my daughters."

She stood there, with her arms crossed. "Well as a matter of fact I _do_ expect you to not stay in the same house with her."

"Oh please Dana, let's not get into that now, I've got to go. A car's going to be picking me up from my hotel in fifty minutes." He was already putting on his overcoat. I promise I'll call you the minute I get back into town." He bent down to kiss her as he checked his pocket for his car keys. "I love you Dana, be good." He reached for the door.

"Don't have sex with her Steve, that's all I'm asking." He turned to look at her, her arms were tightly crossed and she was biting her lip tentatively.

"You know I won't Dana, I haven't in a long time." Then he was gone out the door. After locking the dead bolt, she walked over to the VCR, ejected the video, tossed it own her couch, and went back into her bedroom. She took off the boots, hurled them into the closet and laid down on her bed. For several minutes she lay there whimpering like a hurt puppy. 

Suddenly she realized how stupid and self-indulgent she was being and she sat up. According to the clock on her night table it was only 9:15, she could easily get two more hours of work done if she got cracking. She pulled herself up, redressed into one of her more sensible pajama sets and went to retrieve some files from her valise.

**************************************************

Saturday morning, before 11:00 a.m.

When he arrived at the dock, the ferry was already filling up with cars, eight cars to be exact, for it was a the rather small ferry. During the two hour voyage to the island Mulder talked to some of the other passengers. Most were fishermen or somehow involved in maritime industries. They were generally the kind of people who liked to mind their own business but Mulder couldn't help but think that they must have looked upon him as odd, obviously a city man dressed in nice clothes and a sports jacket lugging a huge suitcase. No one asked him what business he had on the island.

The voyage over was breathtakingly beautiful as they were leaving the coast. Seabirds followed the ferry for miles but the dropped away when land was out of sight. The March sky was totally overcast but expansive nevertheless and visibility was excellent. Earlier in the day Mulder thought it might snow but now it was obvious that spring was right around the corner and these coastal areas had seen their last snow weeks ago. As they were approaching the island Mulder realized it was a lot larger than he had imagined. He started to wonder how the hell he was going to be able to get around. 

The ferry unloaded, the passengers without vehicles disembarked first then the cars rolled off one by one. Mulder asked a man who was waiting to board the ferry to return to the mainland where the motel was that Alex had mentioned he was staying.

"It's all the way on the other side of the island, pretty remote, way outside of town, you don't have a car?"

"No is there some type of transportation available?"

"There's one cab company operating this time of the year, If you go over to the office at the end of the dock, the dock master'll be happy to call him for you."

"Thanks man."

Mulder ended up waiting almost an hour for the cab to arrive. While he waited he read over the ferry schedule that was posted on the wall outside of the ferry company's office. They were still operating on the winter schedule until the end of the month. That meant there were no more ferries scheduled for Saturday and none scheduled at all on Sunday. He would have to wait until Monday morning, a day and a half to get out of there. 

Mulder didn't think the cab driver was exactly sober when he arrived at the dock but what the hell, there was hardly anyone on the island, what were the chances of him having a collision with another car. He talked to the driver, he'd been watching a televised basketball game with his buddies and sons all afternoon. Mulder wondered if that was why he was so late. On the way he tried to scope out stores restaurants, anything vaguely resembling civilization. They passed through the town, it seemed pretty quiet and pretty small. Several fishing boats were docked by a large pier and were unloading. The whole area smelled like fish. They passed out of the town a drove for several miles until they reached an area that was low-lying and completely devoid of trees. There in the middle of a large parking lot stood the motel where Krycek was staying. Carson's Motor Lodge, "appartmentets, kitchens, cable TV." It was pretty dreary and remote, but why the hell would Krycek come here with his back up against the ocean and a ferry that only left twice a day, only six days a week. The taxi pulled up to the office of the motor lodge and dropped off Mulder.

"That'll be eleven fifty." Mulder gave the driver twenty dollars and told him to keep the rest.

The driver thanked him profusely, "If you need a cab anytime while you're on the island just call me, here's my card." He handed Mulder a wrinkled card that looked as if it had been recycled through many hands. The telephone number had been scratched out and rewritten twice.

He palmed the card and slipped it into his pocket "Thanks I'll probably need a cab back to the ferry the next time it runs to the mainland."

"Just make sure to call me in advance, sometimes I'm pretty busy with the Monday morning ferry." Then the silver cab backed out of the parking lot and turned up the road.

Mulder approached a row of dismal yellow buildings and searched for number eight. Most of the room looked as if they had been torn up, the curtains were missing and they seemed devoid of furniture. There were only two cars in the parking lot, both old and beaten up. Number eight didn't look like it was occupied at all. The curtain was tightly drawn and no light was emanating from within. What if Krycek wasn't even here anymore. He knocked on the door and unconsciously held his breathe as he awaited a reply. A few seconds later he heard the chain slipping off the inside of the door. A pistol was immediately thrust into his face along with a note scrawled on a piece of motel stationary, "Help me search for bugs, QUIETLY."

He stepped into the room. There was Alex, beautiful as ever, even while holding a gun to his face. He had been searching the room, that was apparent, the cover was off the heater the light fixtures were taken apart. Mulder silently mouthed to Krycek, "Its okay, put the gun down." He set the luggage down on the grimy carpet and put his hands up over his head. 

Krycek didn't know what to make of the situation. His paranoia was tearing him in two directions. He wanted to search the room for bugs but he was distrustful that if he turned his back on Mulder he would pull a gun on him or shoot him. With his free hand he began patting down Mulder's body. He removed the service pistol from his waist and a small pistol he had holstered to his ankle. With his own gun he indicated for Mulder to begin searching. Mulder went over to the electrical outlets and began unscrewing the covers with his Swiss Army knife. In this fashion he proceeded to examine the wiring on all the outlets throughout the bedroom and the kitchen. Krycek felt along the insides of the drapery rods, the bed frame and underneath the counters in the kitchenette. After about an hour and a half of searching Krycek indicated to Mulder to step out of the room and into the parking lot. "I think its clean." he said. 

"What makes you think it was bugged in the first place?"

"Someone was in my room this morning when I was out, besides the maid that is."

"How do you know."

"Things were different, the lamps were moved and the curtain was opened, she never leaves it like that."

"Are you confident that there are no bugs in there, ...you know and I know your pals have access to the most sophisticated listening apparatii available."

"I have no idea Mulder, maybe we should search it again, maybe I should get another room?" His arms were tightly wrapped around himself from the cold. He looked up at Mulder. "Were you followed?"

"I don't think so. I took a lot of pains to keep from being followed. I rented a car in New York before I drove up here. I don't think there was anybody on the ferry following me."

"Do you want to go back in?" Mulder indicated towards the doorway.

"Yeah, let's go back in, its freezing out here." Krycek who was only wearing a tee-shirt, jeans and a pair of socks, was shivering. 

"Thanks for coming up, they almost had me in New York."

"We were able to track you through the ATM card in New York."

"You're not the only one, Cancerman was tracking me too."

The two men stepped back into the room which was now torn apart from their search. Every electrical plate and every vent cover was heaped into a pile on the bed. The TV, the alarm clock and every kitchen appliance had been taken apart to some degree. With a gesture calculated to show his suspension of mistrust, Krycek stowed his weapon in the night table drawer. Then he began replacing things as he quietly continued talking to Mulder. 

"I was seeing a specialist, a psychologist who did regressive hypnosis, I think that's how they got me." 

"You used your real name with this doctor?"

"I really didn't have much of a choice considering I was going under hypnosis every week."

"Good point."

"I had to be able to trust this guy, either that or never regain my memory of the past."

"So you think this guy gave you up when you started reminiscing about selling national secrets?"

Krycek grinned widely, "No, I think they just tracked me down because I was using my real name plus I was in the same place at the same time every week." Sarcastically he added, "By the way that's how I spent my weekly allowance, Thanks Mulder."

Mulder sat on the bed watching Krycek replacing everything. He looked scared and vulnerable but he was certainly healthier looking. His hair was longer and the cuts and bruises on his face had healed. "Why did you come here Krycek? Where in the hell are you going to go if Cancerman and his pals take the ferry over one day."

"I call the ferry office everyday to see who's on it." Krycek began rescrewing the light switches. "I don't know why I came here, I know my backs to the wall but I can also see everyone who's coming and going....In the winter only about twenty or thirty people a day come and go off this island. In New York I thought they were everywhere." Krycek paused for a few moments while he formulated his next thought. "I know that I can't stay here forever but it will take a while before they find me here, maybe even several months."

How in the hell did Krycek get off assuming that he had no intention of arresting him right then, Mulder wondered? "I brought the stuff you asked for."

"You got the laptop, great. Is your boss willing to make a deal with me?"

Mulder was a bit taken aback by this last remark. Had he really led this man to believe they were actually ready to cut a deal with him? He doubted it. "Skinner?, He doesn't even know that I'm here. He thinks I'm in New York interviewing your old roommate."

"Mona and Matts, how did you find out about them, did Mona report me as a missing person?"

"I guess you could say Matthew Delaney did, in his own little way." Mulder watched the expression on Krycek's face while he revealed Delaney's fate. "You know his body was found in the trunk of his car in Lowell Massachusetts a week and a half ago. Your prints were all over everything."

"Shit, they got Matts." Krycek put the screw driver he was holding down on the dresser and looked away. The look of agonized resignation, on Krycek's face was much more pained than Mulder would ever have imagined possible from a cold-blooded killer.

"I take it you're going to say you didn't do it."

Krycek shook his head and silently mouthed "No" with out ever looking at Mulder. "Is Mona okay?"

"The other roommate, I take she's fine, I haven't talked to her but she's talked to the police about the Delaney murder. I was actually on my way to see her when I got the message from you to come up here."

"I didn't kill Matthew Delaney, He gave me a ride out of town the day Cancerman's goons almost caught me coming out of my psychologist's office. The last time I saw Matthew was in Manchester New Hampshire."

"I believe you, Krycek. Delaney'd been tortured with a knife, probably for hours, I couldn't figure out why the hell you would have done that." Krycek seemed extremely upset by this revelation. "So you have to ask yourself for your own safety, did Delaney have any idea that you were coming here. "

"Matts thought I was going to Canada, he had no idea what kind of deep shit I was actually in. He assumed I was getting out of the country to escape the police. Let's not talk about this anymore." Krycek paused silently as he remembered Matts, his girlfriend's roommate with whom he had gotten to be so close in the few months they had lived together. "Mona must be devastated, does she know ...about the torture part?"

"I have no idea Krycek, I'm going to talk to her on my way back to Washington, on Monday afternoon I guess." 

"Would you deliver a letter to her for me?"

"No problem." 

"Show me what you were able to get out of my house."

Mulder hauled the suitcase up onto the bed. Krycek sat down and waited to be presented the articles he had requested. First Mulder handed him his Army issued Baretta semiautomatic pistol.

The pistol seemed to really cheer Krycek. He checked to see if it was loaded, which it apparently was because Krycek began rearranging the bullets in the clip,. "Thanks Mulder, this is great, I've had this pistol for almost ten years now." He began waving it around pretending to aim it. Suddenly he directed it at Mulder's head, "Okay Mulder, take off your clothes and lay down on your stomach with your hands behind your back."

Shit, was he just joking, why the hell was he starting this now? It was time to let him know in no uncertain terms. Mulder tried to be firm but humorous about it so he laughed as he told him, "No Krycek, its not going to be that way, ...not this time."

"Oh come on Mulder, I'm just kidding." Then he re-aimed the pistol, his voice almost shaking, "But what if _I_ say it is going to be that way,...I could rape you, ...at gun point, ...and you know the gun's loaded." Mulder felt a jolt of excitement and panic race through his body. He glanced over at his own gun lying on the bed way out of his reach. "But I won't,..." Krycek lowered the pistol, he began laughing grimly, "cause I'm already _fucking_ with you." But there was no hiding the fact he had been dead serious if only for a second.

It was definitely time to change the subject. Mulder next produced the laptop computer which he had carefully packed into a case along with the power cord. Krycek immediately set up the computer and booted it up. Within minutes Krycek was bent keyboard searching for the files from the DAT tape which he had copied onto his hard drive. 

"I took a lot of pains to hide these files onto my hard drive. They're cut up, renamed, encrypted and deposited into the middle of pornographic text files, jpegs and gifs that I downloaded from the Internet."

Mulder smiled, "You don't think a computer snoop would look at your pornography?" 

"The way I hid these they wouldn't even know what they were looking at" For a few more minutes Krycek bent over the screen working on trying to get into the files he had taken such great pains to hide. Mulder sensed he to be getting more and more frustrated. 

"I can't seem to retrieve any of them."

"Did you leave your encryption program on the hard drive."

"No Mulder I didn't, they were all encrypted by hand." Mulder was certainly impressed by that. "I can't even find the files much less the encrypted versions." He continued beating away on his computer keyboard. "Shit, Even the ones that were dropped right down into the middle of another file seem to be gone."

"Other than that does the hard drive seem like you left it."

"Exactly."

"Maybe you hid them too well."

Krycek continued opening files and searching his hard drive. "That's what I'm hoping, It's been almost a year since I looked at this thing. I'm having a hard time remembering exactly how I did this."

"Are all the DAT files on your computer?"

"Only the ones I was able to break in the first place, a tiny percentage of what was originally on the tape." 

Mulder was visibly disappointed. "What do you remember that was on the tape?"

"Not much, I mean it took me a long time to even remember who I was and that some creepy shithead I used to work for was trying to kill me, much less the details of every computer file on my hard drive from over a year ago." Krycek put the computer down and let out an exacerbated sigh, "Shit I can't deal with this now," He looked up at Mulder, "Are you hungry? Let's go and get something to eat."

"I need to get a room first, I'm sure they'll have a vacancy at this time of year."

"Don't count on it buddy, the lady that runs this place has all the rooms torn up to be painted. I had to wait a whole day for this room to be ready. You can stay with me, I've got two beds." 

Mulder was already picking up the phone. "I'll see about that myself." The desk clerk informed him that actually the motel was closed while the rooms were being painted but that they could have a room ready for him by check-in time the next day, did he mind if it smelled like paint? She suggested a guest house in town that might be able to put him up for the night. Mulder thanked her and said it wouldn't be necessary to prepare a room.

"I told you Mulder, I went through the same thing myself last week. The only reason I waited for this room is because of its remoteness it and has a kitchen." 

"I guess I don't have much of a choice unless I take the cab all the way back into town."

"Actually that guest house is only about a forty minute walk, but like I said you're welcome to stay here."

"I guess I'll stay here then." Mulder figured he would have to sleep with his gun tucked under his pillow.

Alex was unable to hide his delight, a mischievous grin spread across his face. "Let's go and get something to eat, there's a pretty good restaurant about fifteen minutes from here, Betty's Fish Fry, they close at eight in the winter so we better get going."

"Where are you getting your money Krycek, you haven't picked up your two hundred dollars in over three weeks."

"You're not my only friend Mulder, I was able to reestablish contact with some of my former clients from when I was in business with Jeraldine." Krycek started to ramble. "They're paying me plenty of money in hopes that I'll be able to provide them with some more information. But actually, I have no intention of doing business with them again, I'd much rather make a deal with the FBI even though two hundred dollars a week is a paltry sum of money to be trying to live on in New York City." As the discussion continued both men put on coats and walked out the door. Krycek repacked the computer and carried it along with him. He had no intention of letting it out of his sight until he'd thoroughly examined the harddrive.

"So you're saying that if we'd given you more money you would never have re-established contact with your former clients."

"Basically, yeah."

"How much have they given you?"

"So far just five thousand, I'll have to actually produce something before they give me anything else. Right now I only have about eight hundred left."

"Do your contacts know where you are?"

"God I hope not, they'd probably kill me if they did. They expected something for their money weeks ago. The French want to kill me anyway because of what happened to their sailors. I'll never go back to _that_ stinking country again."

Mulder had to laugh, how in the hell did Krycek manage to get so many people after him. "So just who is it that paid you five thousand dollars for nothing?"

"You're going to laugh when I tell you."

"No I won't, I promise."

"The Mafia...," 

Mulder stopped in his tracks and banged himself on the forehead out of disbelief.

"...but they were planning on reselling the information to a huge multinational corporation. Actually, what they wanted to do is try to get the multinationals to pay them so they _wouldn't_ sell to anyone else. Quite a nifty little scam, I thought about getting in on it myself but I'd be way too visible ...to you know who. Gerry was only ever planning on giving them the garbage off the tapes, the real money would have been paid by national governments."

"But you two never really got very far peddling that information, did you?"

"No, we didn't, and she didn't trust me and I didn't trust her. That's what really slowed us down. She was always trying to trick me or steal from me. I re-encrypted the files mainly to keep them away from her."

Mulder began laughing. "Jesus Christ, Krycek, haven't you ever heard of honor among thieves?" A few minutes later they arrived at Betty's Fish Fry, a simple little family restaurant with a large plate glass window overlooking the ocean. Mulder and Krycek took a booth in the back of the restaurant in order to continue their discussion out of earshot of the other customers. He nervously began fiddling with the sugar packet at the end of the table. Eventually a young and pretty waitress greeted them handing them menus.

"Hi Alex, I see you brought a friend tonight."

"Yes, this is my agent from New York City, Fox Mulder."

"Hi Mr. Mulder, so you publish books."

"It's nice to meet you."

"Actually Mr. Mulder isn't a publisher, he just represents different writers to the publishers. He tries to get my work published for me."

"Oh. okay, can I get you guys something to drink while you're deciding?"

"Sure I'll have a beer, Labatts."

"I'll have a beer too." The waitress walked away from the table. "So you told her you're a writer, how utterly unique."

"Well I know it's not very creative but its actually the most plausible story I could come up with. And several people have told me I'm not the only writer who's been cloistered up here to finish a book." Krycek was laughing at a recent memory, "I've actually gotten some diner invitations from some of the local patrons of the arts, but I've declined them all, I tell them I can't be distracted."

Upon the recommendation of the waitress they both ordered the fish and chips. It was very good, probably the best fish and chips Mulder had ever had, the fish was crunchy and moist, the coleslaw was sweet and crisp. Both of them ordered several beers as they continued their conversation.

"The food here is great, I never expected such good food at such and ordinary looking place."

"It's the best food on the island, that's why this place is so popular."

"So what did you do in New York City besides go to a psychologist?"

"I lived with Mona and Matts. I worked as a cook in a restaurant for a while and I hung out at the Cuban consulate trying to get a letter to a friend of mine in Cuba."

"Didn't you think that was a little risky, the CIA used to photograph everyone coming or going there."

"I thought for awhile I would be able to go down to Cuba and stay with my childhood friend for awhile, I knew that I would be safe there. My letter was supposedly sent in diplomatic pouch. I finally got a chance to talk to the Cuban consulate officer. When I told him I had worked for the FBI he said I should give up on the idea. They didn't want to have anything to do with me after that."

"That's probably what gave you away, Krycek."

"I don't know, I don't think so, I'm almost certain it was just me coming and going from that doctor's office."

"So you have a childhood friend in Cuba?"

"Yeah, kid used to live next door to me in Miami. His family went back to Cuba when his dad was offered a professorship at some university down there. After that his family was never able to get back to the US. When I was in the Navy I met up with my friend in Spain when he was going to the University of Madrid. He eventually moved back to Cuba two years ago."

"So how did you get hooked up with Mona Perry and Matthew Delaney?"

Krycek grinned as he recalled his first meeting with the woman who had become his lover throughout the winter. "I picked up Mona in a bar on Christmas Eve. She was getting sloshed because she didn't have anyone to spend the holiday with. Matts had gone home to Virginia and she had to work."

"Was Matthew Delaney her boyfriend."

"No, no he was just her best friend and roommate, There was nothing between them."

"So you picked her up and ended up spending two and a half months living with them."

"Basically yeah, she was actually the tenth woman I stayed with in New York that I picked up in a bar." His tone took on a self-satisfied air. "The rest of them had the audacity to throw me out the next day, their roommates weren't nearly as understanding as Matts was." Krycek took a long gulp on his beer. He leaned forward as he related to Mulder how he was able to survive on the run for so long. "Something I learned a long time ago is if you play your cards right you'll never have to pay for a hotel room. Usually for the price of a few drinks you get a place to stay, free sex and free food." He leaned back as he mused about his experiences. "Men are a lot more demanding though, they want you to start paying for shit the very next day and they usually expect you to have your own toothbrush. That's why I always stick to women when I'm looking for a free place to stay."

What a cocky little mercenary shit, Mulder thought to himself. He was freely admitting to the typical pathological behavior of a criminal on the run.

"Thanks to you I had to lay up in a cheap hotel for almost two weeks while my face healed and I was pretty enough to be picked up." 

Mulder thought back to the injuries he had inflicted on Krycek the previous November at the cabin Scully's friend had lent them. He picked up Krycek's wrist to examine the ragged scars that still marked his skin where it had been ground into the sharp edge of a piece of furniture.

"I'm sorry about that." He examined the iron bracelet that Krycek now wore over his wrist, "What's this?"

"This is the bracelet that Mona gave me, its a slave bracelet, I'm her slave." he said matter-of-factly. He searched Mulder's face for a revelation of shock. 

Mulder was embarrassed, "Oh, I see, ...you had quite a relationship with Mona Perry then." Just a flash of jealousy crossed him that he hoped wouldn't be detected his voice.

Krycek looked away. "I fell in love with her, ...if you met her you'd know why. She was perfect for me." Krycek held up his wrist, "She has a matching bracelet too."

Mulder shook his head, it was sweet, in a sort of quirky perverted way. He wasn't at all surprise that Krycek would have some degree of bondage and discipline to his sexual tastes. Meanwhile memories began to flash back into his mind. ...Krycek handcuffed to the loft bed, an unaccustomed brutality and a hard sensuous body, the moans of pain and pleasure and the maddening tightness of anal penetration... 

"Mulder, what are you thinking, you look like you're in another world." Krycek had laid a gentle handle on his arm, he removed it as soon as he saw Mulder had become aware of it.

He turned his gaze to Krycek's eyes. "Nothing, I was just thinking back to last fall."

Krycek grinned, he started to say something sarcastic but he stopped himself. Maybe Mulder wanted it again, but whether he did or not he was ready to try every trick in his power to convince him that he did.

After they finished eating they walked the two miles back to the motor lodge. Krycek talked about what he believed happened to him after he had met up with Mulder in Hong Kong. 

"I vaguely remember seeing you at the airport in Hong Kong, I know I was trying to get back to Washington D.C.. After that I don't remember anything until I was locked in a large, dark, cavernous room with some type of airplane or space craft. I was there for days. I think I started to go out of my mind."

"Do you remember getting out of there?"

"Oh yes, but vaguely, I remember I was filthy and cold, I had to drink my own urine to stay alive." 

Mulder was amazed at the lengths that Krycek had taken to survive in the last year. If for no other reason that alone commanded his respect and admiration.

"When I examined that space craft, it wasn't made out of metal, it seemed to be made out of some type of living tissue, it was really weird, I didn't want to touch it, I tried to stay as far away from it as possible. I thought something was going to come out of it and come after me. I was huddling by the door practically unconscious when they dragged me out of there."

"Who dragged you out?"

"I don't know but I'm sure they had something to do with our mutual friend, that cigarette smoking bastard. It was an emotional epiphany for me, getting taken out of that room, I had already accepted the fact that I was going to die."

"I'm sure they left you in there as long as they possible could, to make the brainwashing on you easier. Once you had given up your own life and relinquished your personality it would have been much easier for them to give you another one."

"Yes, I remember that they wouldn't give me any water until I told them I was Raymond Shaw. They kept demanding more and more in order for them to give me food or water or to let me sleep."

**************************************************

They were reentering the parking lot to the Motor lodge. From the lighted doorway of another room a scraggly-looking man called out to them with a heavy New England accent.

"Alex come on over, we're having a party, bring your friend."

Alex whispered to Mulder, "Do you want to meet my neighbors, that's Bert he's a fisherman, he lives with his girlfriend Wendy."

He was actually wary about returning to the room so soon with Krycek. Meeting the neighbors seemed like just the distraction he needed to delay an awkward situation with his former lover. 

He shrugged his shoulders, "Sure, lets go over for awhile." 

Alex called over to the other man, "Hey Bert, we'll be right over. Do you want me to bring some beer?"

"Only if you want some, we've got a bottle of whiskey."

Mulder spoke quietly and privately to Krycek, "Bring the beer, that's all I'll drink." 

"Okay wait for me here, I'll be just a second," Alex answered just as quietly, and emphasized the private nature of their exchange by gently placing his hand high up on Mulder's collar. 

It occurred to Mulder that a certain intimacy existed between he and Alex. He couldn't deny it, he just hoped it wasn't glaringly obvious to everyone else on the island. How many times during their meal had Krycek reached over and touched his hand. He had done the same many times without even thinking. It didn't anger him, it was odd and unexpected considering the way he had hated him once. But now he and Alex shared an awful lot of secretes now, and Alex was willing to tell him everything. 

Bert and Wendy were passing around a bottle and watching some stupid program on TV when the two men enter.

"Hello friends, welcome." Bert greeted him extending his hand to Mulder and the bottle to Krycek. Krycek surprised Mulder by taking a big swallow directly out of the bottle and passed it back to Bert.

"Hey Bert, this is my literary agent Mulder, from New York."

"Hello Mr. Mulder, do you have a first name?"

Krycek laughed, "Tell them Mulder." Krycek broke of a beer from the six pack and handed it to Mulder.

"Its Fox but I don't go by that, people just call me Mulder, except for my immediate family."

"Okay, Mulder it is, this is Wendy, my girlfriend."

"Hi." A pretty, yet simple looking woman who looked to be about sixteen with obviously over bleached blond hair waved to him timidly from the side of the bed.

For about an hour and a half the four of them continued talking and drinking with the television flickering in the background and the sound turned way down. For Mulder and Krycek the conversation became an elaborate exercise at interwoven deceit. Krycek would confirm and elaborate upon Mulder's lies and Mulder confirm and elaborate upon Krycek's. They tried to work in as many insignificant truths about themselves as they possibly could in order to establish a comfortable bases of familiarity with which to relate to their hosts. Mulder talked about his favorite books, details of his family, his high school years and his college education. Soon Krycek caught on and began doing the same thing. Eventually it became apparent to themselves alone, that they were using the conversation, intermeshed within an outline of blatant fictions created for the benefit of other people, to reveal details of their lives solely to each other. 

Their hosts, it turned out, were dumb as doornails. Bert was just stupid, he was a fisherman who didn't even like fish, and Wendy was so young she could only be considered to have the mentality of a child. She claimed to be nineteen but neither of them believed she was a day over seventeen. Mulder doubted she was even sixteen.

Why was she here? Oh, she'd hoped to get some kind of a job on the island after the tourist season started, maybe as a waitress or a maid in a hotel. In the meantime she was staying with Bert her boyfriend, a thirty-year-older worker on a fishing trawler. She had worked at the fish processing plant for a week when they had first arrived in early March but she couldn't stand the work. She stayed in the hotel all day watching television or she took walks around the island until her boyfriend returned. She always made diner for him, they both hated fish so she made hamburgers every single night. They had a car and Mulder got the impression that they regularly gave Krycek rides to the grocery store or wherever he needed to go.

They were nice people, Mulder couldn't deny that, he was just surprised to see that Krycek had any tolerance for people who were simply _nice_.

At about ten-thirty Mulder noticed that Bert was rolling a joint. "Do you get high Mulder?"

Krycek looked at him as if to encourage him to partake. "They don't give random drug tests in the publishing industry." he quipped. He directed a canny smile towards Mulder after detecting an uneasy shrug from the agent.

"Sure I'll get high. " Did not inhaling _really_ work, he wondered. 

Wendy lit up the joint, inhaled deeply and passed it to Bert who in turn passed it to Mulder. Shit, they were all watching him now. He had to inhale, even if just a little bit. While he took his first puff of marijuana in over ten years he observed Wendy pull Krycek over to her, suggestively attach her open mouth to his, and transfer a lunge full of smoke into his mouth. Their lips separated almost as if from a sensuous kiss. He was amazed, Bert didn't seem to mind. During his preoccupation with this display he inhaled a huge gulp of smoke which he held deeply in his lunges. Still holding the down the smoke he passed the joint back to Bert and stared incredulously at Alex slyly smiling back at him. 

A minute later Krycek filled his lungs with smoke and pulled Mulder over to him. While Bert and Wendy watched he sensuously attached his lips to Mulder's and blew the smoke into him. Before pulling away he shocked Mulder by quickly slipping his tongue into the other man's mouth, running it over his teeth. Their hosts were falling back on the bed laughing. Krycek laughed and smiled, "You know us literary types, we're all perverts."

Mulder thought it was funny too and he began to laugh, breaking into a cough as the smoke cracked its way out of his lungs. He grabbed his beer and swallowed deeply, ...he was definitely getting baked. 

The game continued, next it was Wendy who pulled him over to her and transferred her smoke into his lunges, He really didn't like the idea of attaching his mouth to the mouth of a sixteen-year-old girl, but god, those lips were soft and delicate and so feminine. It was the pot, it was doing something incredible to him and apparently he wasn't the only one. Bert pulled Wendy over to him a ground his body lewdly on top of her. And there lay Krycek, staring up at the ceiling only inches away from them on the bed with his hand tucked up under her butt. 

The pot was gone, there was only a little bit of alcohol left, the scene was disintegrating rapidly. "Its time to go" Mulder silently mouthed to Krycek

"Okay" Krycek mouthed back. Bert and Wendy, grinding together on the bed, seemed oblivious to the other men. Krycek pulled his hand out from under Wendy's behind, pantomiming crushed bones from their weight, and arose from the bed. He and Mulder walked towards the door and turned around to bid their hosts farewell. 

They talked briefly as they crossed the parking lot. "I wonder about them, they're a strange couple. Sometimes I get the impression he's offering her to me." Krycek handed Mulder the key to the room as they approached the door.

Mulder laughed, "I ought to arrest him for statutory rape." He began fumbling with the lock. "Pot makes me horny." he said offhandedly, and immediately regretted it.

"Me too." The reply was throaty, and too close to the back of his neck. He continued to try the key in the lock as quickly as he could, it all seemed somehow funny and ridiculous to him. But immediately he felt the too close breathe closing in on the back of his head and a hand tentatively slip around his waist. Mulder braced himself for the inevitable jolt of pleasure he knew he would feel when the wet mouth contacted his skin. But suddenly he was through the door. The breathe followed him, a body pushed him up against the inside wall, wet lips pressing against his mouth, he had almost forgotten how soft, how warm. The other man only gave him a second of reprieve in which he pointlessly stated his requisite protest of one word, ..."Krycek,"... as if to ask what he was doing, as if to ask why. But the lips were upon him again and Mulder felt his own hands running up the other man's back, pushing the shirt up over his head, relishing the feel of hard muscles. A beautiful body braced with lascivious determination was silently and forcefully answering him, "you know what and you know why."

Krycek had often thought about this moment over the last few months, when he would rejoin this lover. He had taken considerable risks to bring this about, ridiculous risks in fact, risks that might even cost him life, and he shuddered at the thought. It was so stupid to ask Mulder to come up here, but then again, the sensation of an eager mouth biting and sucking his nipples was enough to make him forget. He didn't have much left anymore, he wistfully thought, a few bits of information he might be able to trade, and his few lovers. So jeopardizing his life to be with them wasn't such a big deal. 

Mulder kissed Krycek as passionately as he could, pushing his tongue down the other man's throat, tasting the depth of him. He offhandedly brushed his hand between Krycek's legs and found him harder than he'd expected. He tested his own erection by rubbing it against Krycek's hip. Just the sensation of a hipbone rubbing against him was excruciatingly pleasurable. He continued to do this for several moments while running his hands over the other man's body, grasping his face, his nipples, running his fingers through his hair.

Krycek began guiding them over to the bed. He pushed Mulder down with lustful determination. "I want to suck you, I've wanted to do it since last fall." Krycek was beside Mulder on the bed now, pulling at his clothes, yanking down his zipper. Grinning at Mulder, "Did I tell you I was a blow job expert? I can make anyone come in less than five minutes." Suddenly he was shocked at the degree of resentment and hurt he detected in his own voice.

Mulder heard the resentment, it was undeniable, but there was desire there as well. "Don't do it unless you want to and if you do take it slow." Mulder kissed him again, and pulled at his jeans. His shirt was already on the floor and Krycek kicked off his own boots. But before his jeans were completely off Alex pulled himself over on top of Mulder's body. The hot breath against his neck, the wet tongue running along his throat, was making Mulder want Alex no mater what the costs.

"I've thought about you a lot these last few months." he whispered, his lips barely brushing away from Mulder's. 

The other man was thinking the same thing. How many times had he masturbated to the mental image of a woman, only, just before his own orgasm, to have that image eradicated by one of Krycek in his arms, in the shower, totally lost to lust, cumming into his hand.

"Do it for fun" Mulder told himself and he began pulling away his own clothes. Krycek was sliding his body down over Mulder's, kissing and nibbling over his chest, his stomach, rubbing his lips over the rough hair at the base of his stomach. Impatient hands began pulling at his jeans and briefs. For a fleeting moment Mulder felt the coolness of the night air on his stiff cock before it was suddenly and completely enveloped by the distinctive wet confinement of a human mouth. 

Alex really did enjoy this, there were so many wonderful things about giving head, the feeling of complete sexual power he had over another man while he had a living engorged penis beneath his teeth, the smell and proximity of sex and desire to his mouth, his nose and his eyes. He loved the viscous feel and bitter salty taste of cum. But what he loved the most was the forbidden nature of it all. To be the means by which a straight man perverted and defiled himself gave him an incredible erotic charge.

Mulder ran his hands through Alex's tousled hair, his rhythm was exquisite with a tongue that never stopped flicking from side to side and around his cock as his entire mouth moved in a fervent up and down motion. Alex ran his hand up and caressed Mulder's hardened nipples, his other hand worked on the base of Mulder's penis, his scrotum and his asscheeks.

He felt no need to hurry with this man. Even though he had become extremely effective at getting it over with on the repulsive motherfuckers he had been forced to service in prison, tonight he felt no need to engage that efficiency. Instead he let his passion take over and he slowed everything down to an excruciatingly lethargic pace, savoring the feel of the large cock prodding the inside of his mouth and the sounds of the moans slightly frustrated by his slowness. He slowly traced his wet lips over the veins on the sides of the swollen shaft, then engulfed the head, pushing the entire organ as far back in his throat as possible, mixing his saliva with pre-ejaculate to lubricate the entire shaft, the testicles and the muscular area behind them. It might be the only time he ever had Mulder in his mouth, why rush it. 

Jesus Christ, Mulder thought, Alex really knew what he was doing. It was like fucking an orifice that fought back. Alex's lips would contract around him like a vice and then relax while his tongue took over, licking and sucking his balls or probing deeply into the eye of his cock in anticipation of the cum that would be shooting out. But when he bucked forward into Alex's mouth, Alex would push him back and attempted to hold him down with his forearm, a gesture demanding complete passivity. It took a genuine effort to be still while Alex worked over his erection, servicing him, pleasuring him, and seducing him.

He felt his last shreds of his resistance falling away. He had been reluctant to resume the affair with Krycek, ...for so many reasons, but suffice to say he couldn't focus on that now. He didn't give a fuck about anything but that hot mouth devouring his cock and the incredible pleasure that was about the explode into an unbearably strong orgasm.

Krycek felt Mulder grow momentarily larger in his mouth and then began to twitch. His lover cried out loudly and tensed his fingers in clumps of his Alex's hair. A large load of cum began shooting into him. As was his preference, collected it all in a mouthful, savoring it, tasting it, rubbing it up and down the sensitized shaft with his slickened lips, spreading it around and sucking it up again before finally swallowing. By that time Mulder was practically pushing his head away, the sensations were too intense. He pulled himself up onto his lover and kissed him, letting him taste the cum remaining in his mouth, letting him get used to it.

Mulder held on weakly to Alex's hard naked body. The orgasm was so intense but he found he was utterly exhausted. He ran his arms halfheartedly up and down his lover's back. He couldn't do anything else, he was depleted, especially after the booze and the pot and his long, arduous day. He simply didn't have the strength to do anything, even if he _did_ know how to be the passive recipient of intercourse. "Alex, I, I've got to go to sleep, I can't do anything else, not tonight, in the morning."

Alex continued his gentle caresses over Mulder's body. "That's okay man, go to sleep, I'm just going to play with myself for awhile." 

Mulder closed his eyes a nuzzled his face into Krycek's neck. He was too tired to think about the weirdness of it all, sleeping in the same bed, nude, with another man, a man who was supposed to be one of his worst enemies. Alex was lying next to him, quietly, stroking himself. He briefly stole a glance at his erection which seemed enormous. In the morning, with his hand, he would take care of him in the shower. That was the lest he could do considering Krycek's spectacular performance. Closed eyes were quickly overcome by sleep.

Alex lay there for a long time gazing at Mulder drifting off. He quickly lost interest in his own lackadaisical attempts at masturbation. He was content to just stare at the beautiful man lying beside him, limbs tangled, mouth open and hair disheveled. The streetlight coming through the dingy motel curtains shone across his body giving his skin a deathly white caste and making his lips seem almost purple. He wanted so badly to reach over and touch him, to fuck him, to use him violently for his own frustrated release, but he let him sleep, there would be time in the morning.

When he was sure that Mulder was asleep Krycek got out of bed and went to the closet where Mulder had hung up his suit jacket and trench coat. He began searching the pockets for the item he knew he would eventually find, and as he expected, there it was. A pair of handcuffs exactly identical to the pair he had been force to wear for three days that previous November, standard FBI issue, key still in the lock, probably never been used. He slipped back into bed and tucked the handcuffs under the pillow. He had plans for Mulder.

**************************************************

The next morning Alex awoke at dawn and quietly began his preparations. He gazed upon the beautiful naked man lying in bed with him, his arm tucked under Alex's head and his legs partially wrapped around him. Sleeping, Mulder appeared innocent and vulnerable. Alex wondered if he had he awoken in the night, as Alex had, to gaze with wonder on his lover, amazed by the fact that something he never thought would ever come to pass was a reality? It had never so this sweet, not since with Neil back in Miami. Alex quietly removed the hand cuffs from under the pillow where he had stashed then the night before. He carefully took one of his lover's wrist in his hand and pressed the cuff around it. He slowly pulled the cuffed wrist up to the bed frame and wove the other side of the cuff around the wooden insert. His quarry continued to sleep soundly. Then Alex pulled the other wrist up and quietly secured it with the other side of the cuff. It was amazing had he how managed to not awaken Mulder. He arose and went to the bathroom where he retrieved the tube of K-Y and the pack of condoms he had purchased in anticipation of this visit. When he returned, Mulder was awake, and propped up as far as he could with his wrists secured in such an awkward position.

"What's this all about Alex?"

"I'm going to fuck you Foxy, and you're going to thank me afterwards."

"What if I say no."

"Say it too loud and I'll put duct tape over your mouth." Alex crouched over his lover he placed the K-Y and condoms beside them on the bed, pulling the sheets away to expose Mulder's nakedness. Jesus, what a beautiful body, he thought. He began running his hands over Mulder's chest, his hips, his flat stomach.

Mulder tried to squirm away. "Knock it off, I'm not in the mood."

Krycek was now reaching for his crotch, "You will be." 

He began to respond involuntarily to his lover's touch even as he continued to protest. "Krycek, I'm not in the mood for this now." He started to answer "maybe later," but stopped himself. He had every intention of ending the sexual side of their relationship immediately. He had never intended to renew it in the first place. Sleeping in the same bed with this man had been a major mistake, so had staying in the same room with him for that matter. No matter what his intentions were, however, his cock seemed to have other ideas and he found himself growing hard under Alex's caresses. Alex leaned over and kissed him on the lips, he kissed him back quickly and then tried sliding out of the bed and away from his lover, but he found he was too far to the center, he just couldn't get his hips over the side while his wrists were shackled to the headboard.

Alex laughed, "You're not in charge anymore Foxy." He hauled him back to the center of the bed by his ankles and covered Mulder with his own hard body. Mulder repeatedly tested the security of his bondage and found it was inescapable without the key. This, combined with the fact that his lover's body completely pinned him, rendering him entirely immobile, terrified him with a sexual exhilaration he was ashamed to admit to himself. Alex took full advantage of his position. He handled Mulder with a sadistic roughness to continually remind the him of his helplessness. He bit hard on Mulder's neck, ears and nipples and mocked his terror-filled moans which actually betrayed a humiliated pleasure. Alex roughly parted Mulder's asscheeks with his fingers, gripping the round muscles and pulling hard. Mulder hollered, but more from excitement than terror or pain. Alex then threatened to push not one, but three or four fingers into the tight opening. He bucked away in terror and the other man just laughed. 

Alex was excited. Mulder was now under his complete control. He almost said, "Better loosen up bitch," but stopped himself. Why be cruel? Instead he said "It'll be all right Mulder, I'll take it easy on you, you're going to love it." 

He wasn't protesting anymore, even though his mind was screaming "No!" his body wanted it. Every muscle in his body was hungering to get fucked. He passively allowed his body's hunger take over. Besides, not much he could do, he told himself, after all he was completely bound.

Alex turned Mulder over on his stomach twisting his wrists painfully in the cuffs. He angled himself, kneeling, between Mulder's spread legs. He produced the tube of K-Y, opened it and spread a generous amount on his fingers and applied it to Mulder's asshole. He worked as much as he could into Mulder, occasionally stopping to stroke the other man's scrotum, his now rock-hard penis and to caress his body. He pressed his chest down along Mulder's sweaty back.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to last long, you're so tight, you're going to have me over the edge in minutes." While he was speaking these words he inserted his index finger deep into Mulder's anus rotating it back and forth in a hard sexual rhythm. "I won't enter you until you're really ready."

Mulder couldn't answer him, he was practically hyperventilating with excitement and dread. Alex introduced a second finger into his victim's ass, stretching him further. Mulder was moaning uncontrollably now. Alex resumed a lewd fucking motion. He chuckled to himself when his virgin lover wantonly and rhythmically began thrusting his ass up onto the invading hand. 

He withdrew his fingers and grabbed a condom from the other side of the bed. Tearing the package open he rolled the condom down over his shaft. He put another large glob of K-Y on the opening of Mulder's asshole and positioned himself between Mulder's asscheeks lying there, not moving.

Mulder was horrified by the size of the cock pressed against him, ready to rend him apart. Krycek sensed his hesitancy and quickly caressed him and reassured him, "It's okay man, once I'm in it'll fit like a glove." He shifted slightly and pushed the tip against Mulder's opening. "Get up on your knees Foxy." With the help of Krycek's arm pulling him, he obeyed, but his lover still didn't enter.

With his chest pressed tightly against Mulder's sweaty back and his arm wrapped tightly around him, he thrust his tongue roughly in and out of Mulder's ear breathing heavily against his neck. With his spare hand he began stroking Mulder's cock and scrotum, squeezing his balls tightly and spreading the glistening pre-ejaculate over the stiff shaft. With the tip of his own cock positioned against Mulder's hole Alex began a gentle rocking motion. He would rock forward, pressing himself against Mulder's anus but not hard enough to enter, and then pull away. Again he rocked forward, but not entering his pinned lover. His movement continued this way for several minutes. All the while Mulder tensed his body, afraid that Alex would suddenly ram himself fully within him without prior warning.

Alex murmured into Mulder's ear, "When you're ready, push yourself back onto me." Then he positioned himself motionless, pressed against Mulder, his body demanding that his lover take the initiative. Slowly, Mulder leaned back, he felt the bulbous head of Krycek's cock push through his opening, but it was just too damned uncomfortable, too damned painful, he pulled away. 

"Try it again, I'm not releasing you until you do it. ...Once you get yourself over the head its a lot easier"

Mulder leaned back again and pushed himself over the first centimeter of Alex's shaft. He paused to catch his breath and adjust to the discomfort, then he leaned back again. Now the thickest part of Krycek's cockhead was stretching the tightest part of Mulder's spincter muscle. 

Alex felt his lover tensing in pain beneath him. "Push back just a little further," he ordered and Mulder did, fully taking the cockhead inside himself. Alex felt him relaxing a little and then brace himself for the next push.

Mulder's slow and deliberate efforts to impale himself were delightfully agonizing to Alex. He really wanted to ram forward roughly and fill Mulder up with more of his hard flesh than he could take, but he held back. The excruciating pleasure of the slowness would make his orgasm so much more intense.

Suddenly Mulder jerked himself back onto Krycek several inches, He cried out in pain and remained still not pulling away. "Rock back and forth Mulder just like I was doing earlier, stretch yourself open." He felt the motion begin, and soon Krycek was fully buried in his lover's ass. 

Before he began any movement of his own he asked, "Are you okay with this?"

"Yes," Mulder answered, as if any other response would have made a difference at this point. 

"I'm going to begin fucking now," and as he said this he began thrusting his hips forward, a little more roughly than Mulder had expected considering the gentleness and slowness he had been using up until that point. 

It still hurt, but the pain was abating rapidly as he adjusted to Alex's motion. Alex deliberately angled himself to rub against his prostrate. Soon he was moaning with ecstasy. The pain was still there, slightly, but only serving to heighten the sensations of pleasure. 

Alex's pace increased, he stroked Mulder's shaft in time to his own movements within him. He suddenly angled himself downwards for an extremely deep penetration.

"Like I said I'm not going to last long you're just too fucking damned tight," he managed to rasp out as he mercilessly rammed himself into his lover's tight orifice.

Mulder realized that he couldn't last too much longer either. It was just too fucking intense, the pain, the bondage, his lover's animalistic frenzy, the manic strokes on his cock and the punishing beating his prostrate was taking. He felt his balls constrict tightly against him, a euphoric heat spread over his body emanating from his groin and then a shuddering rapture as an incredible load of cum began shooting out of him. He cried out and pushed himself hard back against his lover. Alex was holding him tight and crying out. The cock inside him was spasming, he felt cum surging forward. Krycek pulled out one more time, then rammed back in hard and held himself still while he finished cumming. He pulled his fist away from Mulder's cock and swallowed as much of the cum he was able to recover. He was able to catch one more large spurt which he eagerly sucked out of his palm.

"I'm sorry man, I'm a jism junkie," he laughed. He held tightly onto Mulder for several more seconds, shifting slightly, while he finished himself off inside his lover. Eventually he began to grow soft 

Both men separated and collapsed together on the bed. After removing the condom Krycek pulled the handcuff key off of the night stand to unlock his lover. Mulder rubbed his wrists which were a little sore from the cuff as he was pulled into a loving embrace. Krycek placed each of the wrist up to his lips and kissed them tenderly.

"They're not so bad, I've seen worse." he joked. He held his lover's face in his hands and gazed tenderly into his eyes. "Sorry I had to pop your cherry man, I just _had_ to do it. Your ass was just too beautiful to resist."

Mulder kissed him gently on the lips. "I'm going to thank you, you're right, that was wonderful," he whispered as he pulled back from Alex's mouth.

Alex continued to caress Mulder's body. He ran his fingertips delicately over his thighs, his hips, his chest and through his hair. "You don't hate me anymore, do you?" he asked, averting his eyes.

Mulder hesitated, part of him _did_ still hate him, but he couldn't address that now. A slight hardness entered his voice. "I don't hate you Krycek but you still have a lot to answer to me for."

Krycek hesitated, he knew what Mulder was driving at. "...I didn't kill your father Mulder, I already told you that."

The men silently stared at each other for several seconds. "But I admit I was there the night he got shot. My partner, Luis, shot him, ...the trigger-happy motherfucker. We were there to warn him not to tell you anything. I guess Luis didn't think I was being convincing enough so he popped a bullet in him before I even realized what the hell was going on. Then I heard you in the next room, shit I didn't even realize you were there. Luis was ready to pop you too but I pulled my own gun on him and ordered him out of the window." 

"He's dead now, he was killed in prison."

"I'm glad, I can't think of anyone who deserved it more. I just hope he had to go through what I went through first."

"Probably not, he was killed the first day."

"See they could have gotten to me anytime, why did they keep me alive?"

"Did you know they were trying to kill you."

"No. Well they shot at me on the lake."

"My sources tipped me off that your number was up. You were supposed to have been executed the day Scully and I pulled you out of the mental institute."

"My god, I feel like a stray dog at the pound, thanks Mulder."

"You know how I want you to thank me."

"Hey I'll fuck you anytime."

Mulder smiled, "I need that information from the DAT tape, as much of it as you can possibly recover. I want to get that cigarette smoking bastard off my ass once and for all."

"Just as long as I can stay on your ass, that's all I ask in return."

They lay together quietly for a few minutes. Mulder picked up his watch from the night table to check the time. Ten-thirty, definitely time to get up. He arose from the bed and walked into the shower. He allowed the feel of the hot water running over his body to be a continuation of the abandoned sensuality into which he had permitted himself to descend since the previous evening. After a few minutes he was aware that Alex was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and shaving. The other man was wearing a towel. He wondered if he would step into the shower with him, almost hoping he would, but he didn't.

He needed to put some structure on the day. There was really nowhere he needed to be, and nothing to do. He'd brought some work with him, but mostly he wanted just to grill Alex about his time working with the cigarette smoking man and his knowledge of the MJ-12 documents. Alex would need some time some time with the computer to see if he could retrieve anything but Mulder was beginning to suspect that the hard drive had been wiped clean. 

For breakfast the two men had toaster waffles, hot tea and orange juice. Then Mulder prepared to go for a little run which would leave Alex time to get to work searching his hard drive. 

Mulder ran out of the room and down the same road they had walked down the previous evening. The sky was oppressively overcast but the weather was beginning to seem springlike. The grass was starting to take on that light-green spring color and there was definitely a freshness in the air. He ran past some very attractive vacation homes on a bluff that overlooked the ocean and another dingy motel that looked to be completely abandoned. He past a sign that read "Now Entering Arcadia National Park." That's right, he remembered now, this island was half park, half fishing interests. As Mulder ran along he noticed that crocuses had been naturalized all through he woods on the side of the road. In a week or so, blooming, they'd be beautiful.

By running he was working out a state of shock that he hadn't even realized he'd been in until the full gravity what he had just done dawned on him. At one point he stopped and pounded himself on the forehead and admonished himself by cursing quietly. He couldn't turn away from it anymore, he was definitely sexually attracted to Alex. And it wasn't just Alex, there was something within him which had been there all along. He thought about the women whom he had dated over the winter, three in particular he had dated on a regular basis. They had all been all wonderful, attractive, and career minded, but he'd never had any intention of making any kind of commitment to any of them because of the fear of closing himself off from something. And now he realized what that was ...a kind of sexuality that he was just starting to realize he needed. 

It wasn't just Alex, although he had hoped it was. No, Alex had just made it very good for him, but basically Alex was a man who only cared about himself. Mulder doubted he even had any real feelings for Mona, the woman he said he loved. Alex was mercenary to the core in his shifty little rat-like way. He was only using him, to save his life, to get his memory back, to make a deal for immunity from prosecution, and for a piece of ass. Alex's real talents lay in seeing what Mulder really needed, and working him for it.

May be he was being too hard on the other man. After all there was definitely a tenderness and vulnerability there. He seemed to be making a good faith effort at rebuilding the trust that had been destroyed by his duplicity two years earlier.

**************************************************

Mulder returned to the dingy hotel room at about one-thirty. Krycek was bent over the computer drinking a cup of coffee. "Hello Mulder, how was your run?"

"Oh it was fine, I didn't realize that the park was so close to here."

"Oh yeah, about half the island is a national park. They have a big tourist season in the summer." 

"How's it going on the computer?"

Krycek looked up as he banged his fingers on the side of the laptop. "Not good. I don't think the files are just lost I think they've been obliterated, ...except for one thing." He turned the laptop around so that Mulder could view the screen. There was a long sequence of garbled nonsense that resembled an encoded graphic files. About a third of the way down a more consistent pattern emerged. Mulder recognized it immediately. It was Navajo. 

"What is it Alex?"

"Hell if I know, I forgot my Navajo code talker. I remember putting it here though, it was a mistake, there's only a small fragment of a file. When I first started loading the files onto the drive this is the one that I forgot to translate and re-encrypt."

"I'm curious Alex, how did you ever manage to translate those files in the first place?"

"Jerry downloaded a translation program from an FTP site at the University of Michigan. The program was written in the mid-1980's as a joint venture by the Language and Linguistics and the Computer Science departments at the University of Colorado. Strangely enough the project was funded by the Department of State. Anyway the program is very good, you don't even need a code talker, it does a literal word for word translation and figurative translation. Supposedly its one of the best translation programs for any language in the world."

"How did you find out about it?"

"My old business partner Jerry knew all about it. With the line of work she was in she knew she would run into Navajo eventually, I mean, every high school kid knows it was used during W.W.II. She made it a special point to collect encryption and language programs."

"Do you still have that program on your hard drive?"

"I never did have it on my hard drive, its huge. Its still at the FTP site as far as I know and its a on the computer at the salvage company in San Diego." Alex bit his lip for a moment as he remembered something else, "Oh god Mulder, I just thought of something. I uploaded my entire hard drive to that computer system about a year ago. Its being stored somewhere in that building on a Syquest disc. If you could retrieve that disc I might be able to get those files."

"Your hard drive's on a Syquest disc at the salvage company?"

"Yeah, its got my initials on it. I'd also given her some other files she was going to try to sell for me. I know she kept boxes and boxes of tapes and discs at her office, some of that stuff is bound to be there."

"They've probably already been through it all but its worth checking."

"If you find that Syquest disc bring it to me, most of the files have been translated to English and then encrypted by hand with my own little method that I developed when I was in the Navy."

"What is it Alex?"

"Its so specific to me that no one else could de-encrypt it unless they knew a lot about my life. Its based on important dates in my family's history and my personal likes and dislikes. Then I draw up a key based on those. Its always a little bit different, I'm always a little bit off but I'm able to make the adjustments in my key whereas nobody else would."

"It sounds fascinating, and you do it all by hand?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure a computer program could break it by using some blunt method of exhaustion but the adjustments to the key are really what make it unique and difficult."

Mulder wondered if Alex was bull-shitting him. If Krycek didn't have anything left of the harddrive to give him then he really didn't have much to bargain for insofar as getting his freedom. Another more insidious idea occurred to Mulder. What if the rat bastard was just making all this up, what if the files were really there. If Krycek was just using Mulder to bring him the computer, he would have access to the secretes he was planning on selling all along. Dammit, he should have taken the computer to Special Agent Pendrell at the crime lad and had him go over it first so he'd have known exactly what he was dealing with. 

"Krycek, I don't want you to worry about not being able to retrieve stuff off the hard drive. I made a copy of it the other day and the FBI crime lab is going over it now. If there's anything on it to find they'll find it."

"Shit, you took a copy of my harddrive to the crime lab? That means that nerdy little asshole Pendrake or Pinhole or whatever is going to see what kind of porn I like to download, thanks Mulder."

Mulder laughed "What kind of porn _do_ you download Krycek?"

Krycek looked up from the computer with a sly grin on his face, "Gay and straight, it sure is nice to be outed at the crime lab, but I guess they do that kind of thing everyday. So do you, don't you Mulder, with your little criminal profiles?"

"Its been along time since I've done any criminal profiling but I did have that feeling about you the first week we met, if that's what your asking."

Krycek hesitated. "No, actually that's not what I'm asking, but that's about all the crime lab is going to be able to find on the harddrive, none of those files are left." Krycek was folding up his laptop and replacing it in the case.

"Tell me about the man you used to work for Krycek?"

"You mean the smoking dude? He blackmailed me into working for him but now I think it was all a big setup."

"I know about Neil Boden, Cancerman found out you were sleeping with him and threatened to expose you to your superiors."

"Unless I did one little job for him, and that little job just happens to be highly illegal so then they have something else to threaten you with. In the meantime you get hooked on the money. That's how they recruited everybody. Its an old CIA trick. But I think I was set up from the very beginning."

"What do you mean Krycek."

"Raymond Shaw's wife Amy is the same person as Alex Krycek's girlfriend from Miami, Renee Marchildon. Renee introduced me to Neil and practically pushed me into bed with him, the little bitch."

"You're going to have to explain this to me a little better."

Krycek leaned back in the arm chair with his feet up on the dresser. "The first year I worked for the FBI I was stationed in Miami. Our office monitored Cuban crime gangs operating in Southern Florida and the Caribbean. That was one of the best years of my life, I was just out of the Navy, I had more money than I ever had in my life, I was single and having a blast."

"I know about the work you did, I read your file when you came to Washington. I couldn't understand how you got promoted so quickly."

Krycek rambled on, "Anyway my girlfriend Renee and I lived the fast life on South Beach and Coconut Grove. We worked out everyday, went out every night, spent our weekends on the beach or out on her parent's boat. One Saturday night we went to this club on South Beach to meet up with a bunch of her friends. It turned out to be a gay club and about five of her friends that I met were gay men. They all looked me over pretty thoroughly. It made me feel kinda uncomfortable."

"Yeah." 

"Neil, who I had noticed was actually the best looking, asked me to dance with him, of course I said 'no way'. My girlfriend pulls me to the side and gives me this big lecture about how rude I was to not want to dance with him, that I was being closed-minded and homophobic, she said something like, 'Its not like he wants to fuck you, he just asked you to dance, you are in a gay bar after all.' and then she said 'He asked me if it was okay to ask you to dance and I told him you would.' So I finally agreed to dance with him but I told Renee I didn't like the idea at all."

Krycek ran his hand through his hair and smiled as he recalled the evening at the night club. "Neil and I danced, it did seemed weird at first but, ...it was actually pretty nice. When we went back to our table nobody was there so we went out and danced some more. That's when I realized I was really attracted to him. He had short blond hair, he was real surfer-dude-looking. He started putting his hand on my waist and I leaned into him, it was really nice, I was starting to enjoy it. We had a few more drinks and talked, still nobody was around. We danced some more, basically we ended up spending the whole evening together in the club." Krycek gestured with his hand as he thought out loud. "It occurred to me how I was trying to fit in there. I was pretending to be with Neil so no one else would hit on me." Alex sighed, "I really got into that role. Later I found out that Renee and the rest had deliberately ditched us so we could have more time to get to know each other alone."

"When it was time to go I searched everywhere for Renee, I was starting to get angry and jealous, ...and worried. Neil assured me she was with the other gay guys. That's when I figured she was trying to set me up with Neil and I was very angry and confused. He offered to give me a ride home and I accepted. In the car I decided if Renee was throwing me at this guy, then she was basically throwing me away so it was over between us. I ended up going home with Neil instead of to my own home."

"What a passive shitting way to end a relationship. So how long did it last between you two?"

"Two weeks, that was it." He looked Mulder directly in the eye. "Everyday of that two weeks was incredible, new, and filled with wonder but also confusion and self-doubt. I know exactly how you must of felt last fall and how you must feel now." Mulder nodded.

"Exactly two weeks after I first met Neil I got a little visit at my apartment from the man you know as Cancerman. He told me that needed to speak to me about a friend of mine and about my career. He asked me if I knew of any FBI agents who had been fired from their jobs because of personal indiscretions. I said 'no' I hadn't, but that bastard was able to produce a list of people who had been fired by my boss from the Miami office in the years before I started working there. I found out later the whole list was a lie when it was to late, by then I'd already wrapped the noose around my neck several times. The first examples were of people who had been fired for fraud and theft, then he told me about a guy who was fired because he had a mistress and was accepting funds from a crime gang to pay for her. Then he brought out the fag examples. One guy was having sex with underage boys, another guy had had sex with the male prostitutes, and the third guy was fired simply because he was having an affair with a man in another office. He told me he knew all about Neil. Then he explained to me that Neil actually worked for the Cuban gang I was investigating. That was a lie too. He also had pictures of me and Neil together."

Mulder was pulling his running shoes off and crossing his legs on the already made bed. "What do you mean together?"

"They were taken from outside Neil's bedroom window. Do you want me to tell you exactly what the pictures showed?" Krycek stated flatly.

"I'll guess, go on."

Krycek smiled widely as he considered what Mulder might be imagining. "Anyway Cancerman told me that nobody would ever find out about 'my indiscretion' as he called it if I would start working for him and his interests within the FBI. He never gave me any reasons to doubt that he was a legitimate FBI official. He told me I would get paid extra and it would advance my career. I said okay, what did he want me to do? He had me remove and make copies of some files we had on some Cuban-American gangsters and deliver the copies to another man in downtown Miami. That man paid me a thousand dollars."

"Let me guess, the whole point of that little exercise was for you to further incriminate yourself."

"Exactly, Cancerman came to my apartment that evening and congratulated me on the good work that I'd done and then he told me exactly why he'd had me do it. I was furious but what could I do. I couldn't shoot him, he had other men with him then. But the worst was yet to come. When I'd first met the cigarette man, he told me never see Neil again. Later that night Renee called to tell me Neil had run his car off the Key Biscayne causeway."

"I read the police report about Boden's death, it said he had to have been driving at least 90 miles an hour to have been able to break through that rail and gone into the water. The police ruled it a suicide."

"It wasn't a suicide Mulder, Cancerman thought he was protecting me from the evil influences of homosexuality. He sees faggots as roaches that need to be squashed. Meanwhile he was trying to turn me into a hitman."

"So did you kill for money?"

"You really expect me to sit here and confess to murder in front of an FBI agent? Besides I never did anything for money for him. I did what he wanted me to because he owned me. Almost immediately he had me transferred up to Washington to watch you, ...and Skinner. He gave me a lot of money though, I bought that house, I saved a lot. I figured I was making about seventy thousand dollars a year extra."

"Jesus," he whistled through his teeth, "that's twice what I was making."

"More than that Mulder, I was making way over a hundred with my little FBI salary." Krycek grimaced to himself. "But that was a pittance for the work I was doing. I should have been paid five times that much. He kept leading me to believe that it was only temporary, that eventually he would stop asking me to do jobs and my FBI career would resume a normal track. How stupid could I have been. One day it finally dawned on me that the day I stopped working for him was the day I would die. That's when he paired me up with that piece of shit Luis, my partner slash executioner. I later found out he had standing orders from Cancerman to kill me if he detected any disloyalty."

"So how did you contact Cancerman?"

"He called me when he wanted to see me and I would meet him in a parking lot near my house, usually late at night. I started to get the impression while I was watching you that he was becoming increasingly disappointed with my work. That was another little tactic of his, feign disappointment so that your subject is more eager to please, then raise the stakes on what you want him to do."

"So you were actually being given bigger jobs."

"Let's just say jobs that required a bigger commitment. ..I can't give you anymore details Mulder. I'm not going to incriminate myself until I get some kind of deal out of you." 

Mulder was disappointed but he figured there would be time to press him for details later. "God, I have so many other questions I want to ask you, about how they brainwashed you, about your escape from the lake, about New York."

"Didn't I tell you about my escape from the lake?"

"No, but I figured you were able to swim out of there."

"I climbed up on one of those floating docks and set it adrift. It drifted to the other side of the lake and I hid in a cabin until the morning. I was only I the water for about twenty minutes but I kept those clothes on for an hour, that's what practically killed me. The next day I just walked out of there."

Mulder and Krycek talked the rest of the afternoon. He never would have imagined that Krycek would have opened up to him so completely. He wondered if this man was deliberately trying to rebuilding Mulder's trust in him so that he could manipulate him somehow. 

"Tell me about your life in New York City. I want to hear more about this woman Mona that you lived with."

"Mona's twenty-nine years old and smart as a whip. How I got so lucky as to stumbled into that action I'll never know." 

"You mentioned that you picked up a lot of women."

"At least a dozen over a period of about two weeks. Some of them were extremely beautiful, some were kind of plain but they _all_ thought they were doing me a big favor."

"Well, they were Alex."

There was definite hurt and anger in his voice. "In the morning they looked at me like I was some kind of piece of garbage, and they'd throw me out so fast."

Mulder laughed, "What did you expect Alex, you didn't want anything from them but a bed for the night and a piece of ass."

"I feel in love with Mona almost immediately. She was so absolutely cool, she and her roommate both. And I would never ever have had a chance with her if it weren't Christmas Eve. She had never ever picked up a guy in a bar before but she was depressed and didn't know what she was doing." Krycek rambled on detailing his relationship with Mona and his life in New York, his narrow escape from the goons at the psychiatrist's. He omitted the specifics of the criminal life he led, the robberies and the Christmas day killings. He hoped to _god_ the FBI never connected him to those or there would never be amnesty. 

Mulder was amazed by Krycek's detailed account of his love affair. He would have stopped him, he really didn't think any of this was any of his business but he really wanted to know. After all Krycek was his lover too. Besides they had nothing else to talk about. They were just killing time until he started grilling Alex about Cancerman again. "What did you do, Krycek, to change her so she'd be more submissive to you?"

"Oh I would ask her to do little things for me, wear certain clothes, certain undergarments, jewelry. I would tie her up when we had sex, she really loved that. I never tried to humiliate her though, and I never inflicted any real pain on her," He looked directly at Mulder, "like you did to me." Alex stopped for a few minutes as he formulated a thought. "I really don't know what I was doing with her, I never had any final vision of what I wanted our relationship to be like. I loved her though."

"I can't wait to meet her" Mulder joked. Krycek shot him an angry glance. "What about the roommate, what did he think of you staying there."

"Matthew was my lover too." He whispered it, almost as if an apology.

Mulder swallowed hard. "Matthew Delaney?"

"Yeah"

Mulder's response was inadvertently sarcastic and nasty. "Were you dominating him too?"

"Oh no, we were just friends."

"Just friends but lovers."

"Yeah, Mona set us up, she suspected I was bisexual. She came out and asked me one day if I was attracted to him. I didn't lie, I said yeah, I was. And Matts already knew, I'd been posing for him and we'd talked about it. They set it up for us to have a three-way on Valentine's Day. He had a great body and pierced nipples too." Krycek rolled his eyes and whistled too himself as he recalled, and then suddenly he remembered that Matthew was dead and his expression turned gloomy.

"How do you get in these situations Krycek?"

Alex lay back, kicking his legs up on the bed. "I think its a combination of good luck and bad luck, plus I'm attracted to lots of different people. I'm forward too, I tell people what I want and I'm hardly ever turned down."

Mulder was almost making mental notes to himself, not that anything Krycek was saying would be of any practical value.

"I can't tell you how many people I've slept with." Krycek grinned to himself, he ran his hand through his hair and glanced at his reflection in the mirror

"I feel so used." It was meant to be a joke but Mulder detected just a hint of genuine hurt in his own voice.

Krycek rose up from his chair and walked over to where Mulder was sitting on the bed. He wove his fingers through Mulder's hair and pulled his face up to his mouth for a deep kiss. "Oh no Mulder, if I had my way I'd wake up with you in bed with me every morning for the rest of my life." he kissed him again deeply. "Do you know what I'm telling you?"

"That you're an opportunistic slut," Mulder thought to himself. But the kiss and the softness of Alex's words were almost making him dizzy.

"Let's make love" the other man rasped, he was already pulling his lover's shirt up away from his shoulders and Mulder wasn't protesting.

**************************************************

Monday, 10:00 a.m.

The ferry left for the mainland exactly on time with Mulder onboard as a passenger. The weekend hadn't gone exactly as he'd planned, ...or had it? He really wasn't sure what he had expected or wanted to happen. Never in his life had he allowed himself to indulge in such outrageous sexual excesses. He was leaving it now, the island was almost out of view, but his skin still burned from the touch of his lover. There were marks on his neck, his back and his wrists. His throat and his anus still ached from being stretched and filled for his lover's libidinous pleasure. He thrust his erection against the rail of the boat and felt the cold metal even through his woolen trousers and overcoat. He needed one more physical release with Alex, maybe it would happen again but he couldn't even begin to imagine under what circumstances. 

As soon as he got out of Maine he'd planned to call Scully to arrange for a trip to San Francisco to revisit the salvage company. In the meanwhile he was looking forward to meeting Perry, not that he thought she'd have anything to tell him but he was interested to see what she was like after hearing Krycek's description. He had Krycek's ten page handwritten letter to deliver as well. He finally reached Boston at about two-thirty that afternoon. At this rate he wouldn't be able to talk to Perry till that evening. In that case he needed to get a hotel room in New York and fly out in the morning. 

Daring finally to use his cell phone he dialed Scully's number.

"Hey, its me,"

"Where are you? I expected you back here yesterday." she asked.

"In Massachusetts, I'm on my way to New York. Transportation got really screwed up trying to leave, I had to stay an extra day."

"Are you in Boston? Steve's there too. He split Friday night, I should have come with you after all." She heard Mulder's forlorn sigh through the telephone. "Are you okay Mulder?" 

"Its just that things are a lot more screwed up than I ever imagined. I'll tell you all about it later. As it turned out, its better that you didn't come up. It would have been way to conspicuous for both of us to have been there. Why don't you meet me in New York tonight. Pack clothes for several days, we're going back out west straight from Laguardia tomorrow. We have something to look for."

"Sure, I don't think I'll be able to make it up until the last flight, I've got ton's of work to catch up on and a meeting later on today. Tell me what's going on Mulder."

"I'll tell you tonight. Can you get us some rooms at the Omni. I'll probably be there by seven."

"Sure, I'll meet you at eleven in the lobby bar."

"Sounds like a plan, listen Scully, I've got to go, I'm going to have to speed the whole way in order to be able to talk to Perry this evening."

"All right Mulder, I'll see you tonight then, you'd better have some answers for me." She abruptly hung up the phone.

He folded his cell phone and returned to the rental car intent on staying on the punishing schedule he had imposed on himself.

*******************************************************************

Tuesday, 8:30 p.m.

Krycek returned to his room after yet another meal from Betty's Fish Fry. After a few balmy spring like days the weather had suddenly turned cold again. He braced himself against the wind, thankful for the overcoat Mulder had been able to retrieve from his house. The Motor Lodge looked darker than usual and totally abandoned, it looked as if Bert and Wendy had moved out. 

Before he could fully insert his key into the lock, the door gave way and slowly swung open. Krycek withdrew his Baretta and stepped forward inching his way along the inside of the wall. He was immediately assaulted by the acrid smell of smoke, cigarette smoke to be exact, and there at the end of his dark room a little orange glowing cinder was waving through the air. Shit! The door slammed behind him and the cold barrel of a gun was pressed against his skull. Rough hands grabbed his Baretta away from him. The old man sitting regally in the hotel arm chair turned on the light.

"Hello Alex my boy, good to see you again." He stubbed out his cigarette in the formerly unused ashtray which was now loaded with butts. "You've come a long way since the last time I saw you, of course you weren't Alex Krycek then, you were Raymond Shaw, psychotic killer, ...but you were Kevin Cain, roadside murderer, for awhile too, as I recall."

"What do you want?" Krycek dared not even turn around to glance at the man pressing a pistol to his head, he might just decide to use it.

"You know Alex, you've always impressed me by your intelligent and resourcefulness but then you turn around and do something so stupid that I'm truly amazed. You've really outdone yourself this time," Cancerman paused and lit up another Morley. "...In both your resourcefulness and your stupidity."

Krycek stared grimly at his former boss. He considered taking out the man behind him. If he elbowed him just right he might be able to knock the gun away from his head. Cancerman didn't seem to have immediate access to a weapon, he might be able to make a run for it. But no, what in the hell was he thinking. He knew how these men operated, he used to be a part of it himself. There would be backup in the parking lot, right outside the door. And they wanted something from him, otherwise he'd already be dead.

"All that time you looked for a bug, Alex did you really think I would put one in this shithole. Anyway, I didn't even know where you were," He paused and indicated to the desk in the corner, "...until you turned on your laptop computer."

"Holy Christ," Alex thought to himself. The implications were dawning on him, he felt himself flushing with shame.

"I guess some proclivities just won't go away, will they Alex? Yes, we were able to record every sound that came out of this room the entire time you and Agent Mulder were, err.... visiting." Alex heard a derisive chuckle behind him. Cancerman took another long drag on his Morley. 

"Yes I was very impressed by your resourcefulness, not many of my agents would actually use their own ass to get what they wanted out of another agent, ...and it seems you got a lot of what you wanted." He sucked on his Morley and held up a tape. "Seven and a half hours worth to be exact."

Shit, shit, shit, shit. This was humiliating, but it was worse than that, it was more blackmail material. Not for him, nobody gave a fuck what he did, but to Mulder. His integrity could be compromised by a well-placed threat.

"Guess you'll be working for me again Alex." He stomped out his cigarette and immediately pulled another one out of the pack. "No I don't need anymore agents, you've proved to be far too unreliable in the past. The only reason I need you is because of your unique relationship with Fox Mulder." He paused, "He's expecting information from you I believe, he's gone to retrieve a Syquest disk copy of your harddrive? We've made sure its there. They'll be some files on your harddrive that you'll see to it Mulder gets and passes on to his friend the senator. Senator Matheison is one man we need to remove from his position immediately and the information we'll be passing along will assure it. The security of the Senate Armed Services Committee will be compromised, ...to all of our great benefits. If you can successfully pull this off I might find a reason to let you live. I might even be able to find some more work for you. ...As for the other aspect of your unique relationship to Agent Mulder." He paused again and took another long drag on his cigarette. "...if you so much as lay another hand on Mulder I'll see to it personally that every bone in that hand is crushed, ...and then you'll die, ...painfully."

Krycek gulped hard. He felt violated and used by these people. He started to speak but was cut off by the cigarette smoking bastard's continuing soliloquy.

"We've already paid your Mafia friends what you owed them, they won't be bothering you, we've seen to it. As for the French, they'll never find you here. We've given them some false information causing them to look for you in ...Cuba?" He laughed loudly. "Make sure your conversations with Mulder take place near the computer. If you tip him off he'll never go to the senator and then you'll be eliminated. And remember," He held up the tape again, "we can always get Mulder to cooperate with us, we really don't need you at all for this operation, you're just icing on the cake." He paused for a moment, "Well Alex?"

He heard the trigger cock back on the gun pressed to his head. He was momentarily speechless until the gun prodded his head a little harder. "I'll do it." Time to get nasty with the bastard, "...but wouldn't you like some more of those tapes, maybe you could even install a video camera." 

This seemed to infuriated Cancerman. "You have my terms. Maybe you'd rather go back to prison. Perhaps you find rape appealing? Who do you think arranged to get you out of that place?"

"Who do I think got me into that place, and who do I think tried to remove me from a mental institute in order to execute me?"

Alex was amazed at how smoothly Cancerman was able to convolute the discussion, "..But that's all in the past Alex my boy, and you're now in a unique position to redeem yourself and save your career."

In spite of the gun pressed to his skull Krycek laughed out loud at this one. "I'll work for you just this once..." he spat out bitterly.

"We'll see about that. Oh and if you're wondering how we were able to track you in New York, it wasn't from the ATM card or the psychiatrist office. We were able to identify you from the video tape of the grocery store robbery and double murder on Christmas day, and I'm willing to share our information with the New York City homicide office anytime you become less than cooperative with us." Cancerman arose and walked towards the door. He turned just as he was leaving to address Krycek one more time. Alex recognized the man who had been holding a gun to his head, an FBI agent stationed in Boston whom he had actually helped recruit.

"Remember Alex, you have to be able to convince Mulder that everything is legitimate. You shouldn't have any trouble retrieving the files. You know the passwords, same as usual. My people are going to be on the island, watching you so don't try anything funny, like running away or secretly communicating, ...or whatever..., with Agent Mulder. Oh, and you'd better get rid of those cigarette butts, Mulder might become suspicious." The other man tossed his Baretta onto the bed. They turned around and left, letting the door slam behind them. A few minutes later Alex heard a helicopter taking off somewhere behind his building.

A plan was forming in his mind, it wasn't the best plan, but it seemed to make the most sense. He walked over to the cabinet and removed a liter of scotch. Walking back over to his bed he took several long swigs from the bottle, within a few seconds he felt a tingling numbness spreading over his body. He collapsed onto the bed and took several more long swallows from the bottle. He held it up to the light and examined it, amazed that within a few short minutes he had put a major dent in it. He reached into his night stand drawer and pulled out a box of ammunition and grabbed his beloved Baretta off the mattress. He really didn't need more than one bullet, but what the hey, why not load it up, this was a special occasion.

He sat there for a few minutes holding the gun in his hand, examining it, almost as if he was saying good-bye to an old friend. He took several more swigs from the bottle and then raised the gun to his open mouth. Alex had known for along time he would probably die this way. He'd wanted to kill himself in the silo but he'd had no gun, no knife, not even a place from which to hang a rope. If he'd been more aware of his surroundings in prison he was sure he would have committed suicide. The drugs they had given him had dulled his senses, his anger, his anguish. That was no coincidence, Cancerman had planned to keep him alive.

He though what the maid would think when she found him in the morning. They would find his body with an obviously self-inflicted bullet wound and a half empty bottle of scotch by his side. They would chalk it up to artistic temperament. Then they'd check his computer and find nothing but a bunch of cheesy porn downloaded from the Internet. "Writer's block", they'd think. He wouldn't be the first writer to blow his head off when faced with a deadline. 

"Deadline." he said out loud and laughed. Gradually another, better idea formed in his head. And then he put the gun down. 

THE END

 

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